Sharon

So, the real issue for you is not about legalization–it’s about treatment of drug abuse (that to you, undoubtedly leads to other abuses) regardless of drug type.

Hogwash. I am completely against legalizing drugs, but when I was a teenager, I did smoke pot. But when I did, I was a teenager, with no real responsibilities to anyone other than myself.

I now work in child protection, and have a caseload of families where the state has taken custody of the children and removed them from the home due to severe neglect, or physical or sexual abuse. The abuse or neglect is obviously extremely damaging to children, but so is the removal and resultant foster care.

The point I want to make is that of all the children on my caseload over the last 5 years, I could easily state that in at least 80% of them, substance abuse was involved. Why in hell would we want to legalize something that has such a damaging effect on little ones that cannot protect themselves from what their parents do?

Keep in mind that when we legalize something, we are essentially saying, “this is something that as a society we are either willing to accept or at least too apathetic to fight.” Why is it ok to accept the damage these drugs do to our children?

Sharon, I normally agree with you on most issues. Not this one.

I also think it’s quite hypocritical to maintain different classes of substances that can be used to alter mood. Why should alcohol and tobacco be legal once you are over a certain age and as long as you follow various laws relating to their use, while pot is illegal? I’d say that just about everyone who is a baby boomer or younger, and a not-small number of those older, has used it at some point. It’s probably the least-respected law in the country as a result, because the vast majority of people know from personal experience that pot need not be used addictively (though it is so used by some). And people like me, who haven’t used it, know enough people who have to know the same thing.

Having said that, we are missing something deeper – why do people use substances addictively, in a way which may seem to be enjoyable at first but actually harms them and other people? Answer this, and find a way to help people find out for themselves that addictive behavior ends up making their lives worse rather than better, and we won’t need laws, taxes, or anything else to keep drug use at a low, tolerable, nonharmful level (but then if few people are using drugs addictively, farmers or enterprising synthetic chemists won’t make much profit on them, so I guess part of Sharon’s idea wouldn’t work out).

Just to make a partial stab at an answer to why people use drugs addictively, it’s a feedback problem in part. The immediate result of a drug is mood gets altered in a desired way. The undesirable results – hangover, reduced kick requiring increased use, need for money one doesn’t have to buy more, poorer health as a result of use or the consequences of use – are all much delayed compared to the immediate mood change, and therefore not really connected to the drug use. Are there ways to make consequences more immediate? I don’t know.

Just for the record, TV is terribly addictive, and probably more harmful to all of us than any of the drugs so far mentioned. Yet it’s the last thing anyone ever mentions in these discussions. I can no longer use it, and I really wish more people would refuse to use it. But it’s a feedback problem again.

I agree with the person who said it is easier for her neices and nephews to get illegal drugs than cigarettes or beer. Therefore, the war on drugs is not only unproductive but actually counter-productive. By the way, I have never partaken of an illegal substance in my life, have never tried a cigarette and did not touch a drink until I was 21, I’m a Christian, I don’t believe in it. Still, illegal just has not worked, why not try another approach? I hate it when people get so rigid and closed minded.

I personally feel that legalization is going to happen in a few years whether we like it or not; the system is too heavy to stand on its weak little legs now. I am watching it happen. The police are ineffectual now — but it depends where you live whether you will realize it’s happening. Where I lived until recently (out of the urban environment now, thank Goddess), the police car was there in two minutes to clear out the “threat” of my driveway being blocked, and I witnessed a helicopter chase with S.W.A.T. team van and was on the street when a panicked teen stumbled out of hiding in the neighbor’s bushes and the policewoman I was talking to drew her weapon — I found out later three juveniles had been spray-painting the side of the local strip mall. Where my black friend lives, her car has been stolen three times in recent months, and her calls to the police are met with total indifference and she is given a phone number to call and *leave a message* with the details of her V.I.N. number and such. There was a gun fight in her apartment complex, out by the dumpsters, and the police showed up to knock loudly on doors almost 2 hours later when everyone had gone back to sleep.

Trust me when I say we do not have time, money, or energy for a war on drugs. I’m with Sharon, the way we are handling this is completely stupid, not to mention racist and unequally punitive.

The naive moralists have been manipulated into keeping it going, just as they were manipulated into the Prohibition once.

Those of you who think the drug war does something beneficial, do us all a favor. Do something, er, community-minded, eh? Educate yourselves. Follow the money. Follow the violence and corruption. Consider the ghastliness these policies have caused around the globe. Study the way the British turned the opium trade around by making it illegal way back when! Than come here and tell us what you found.

Sharon, you are giving me some hope maybe the the Drug War will collapse for economic reasons… But illegal drugs being one of the three biggest trade items (along with oil and weapons)… maybe not.

I have never partaken of an illegal drug in my life. And I think they should be legalized.

Think about this:

My niece and nephews (being underage) cannot get tobacco or alcohol, since it is openly sold, regulated and taxed.

Illegal drugs are as easy for them to get as water from the high school drinking fountain.

The “war” on drugs has done nothing except fill up prisons.

Then again, I advocate a return to personal responsibility in many things, instead of waiting on the government to “solve” the crisis du jour.

Drugs have been a part of the human experience as far back as there are any records. Early cave paintings are thought to have been influenced by non-ordinary mental states, likely precipitated by ritual, sensory deprivation or psychedelic plants and fungi. We seek to temporarily alter our internal workings for the experiences and insights it provides. And we always will, by drugs or other means.

Government’s role should be to inform people of the very real risks of doing drugs. I’m sure a flood of aficionados will inform as to the benefits. Government should set minimum standards of quality for substances sold and should punish those who do harm to others with or while on drugs. Responsible, safe and peaceful use should be legal.

The compound DMT is illegal. It took researchers many years to obtain permission for a small human study, which discovered that DMT is present in our brains in very small amounts and is a neurotransmitter. So there, you’re brain’s illegal, for now.

Kentucky’s top legal cash crop in those days was tobacco, but it was a hard business, and confined to the central and northern counties. A tobacco farmer once told me that too much land, and one guy couldn’t work it alone, which cut his profits, and too little land, and the farmer couldn’t make enough for it to be profitable. It was a precarious balance.

Kentucky’s top cash crop was marijuana, and it could be grown just about anywere, including next to railroad beds. I think if the people in the mountains could legally grow and sell a cash crop, like marijuana, maybe they could lift themselves out of poverty … a little.

Non-recreational marijuana is appropriate for a number of applications, including fuel. Considering that we’re in the midst of what might become a serious energy crisis in the not too distant future, it would seem prudent to be looking at some non-food, plant-based fuel alternatives, like cannibis.

One last point: the appalachian mountain region of southeastern Kentucky is one of the poorest places in this country. Ten of the 100 poorest counties in the US are in Kentucky. The mountain soils aren’t good for growing much for money, but they can grow cannibis there, because it’s not as picky as, say, corn. Legalizing marijuana as a fuel crop would do a great deal to help folks in southeastern Kentucky who’ve gotten nothing but a raw deal for far too long.

And FYI: many of the counties in southeastern KY are “dry”, which means selling alcohol is prohibited, which means any alcohol procured in that area is bought from bootleggers. Anybody – ANY-BODY can get alcohol from a bootlegger. They don’t ask for ID, and most of the kids I knew, knew where to get it, and did. Alcoholism was rampant there, too, and folks weren’t drinking moonshine. They were drinking Micheloeb light, Boone’s Farm, and Seagram’s Seven. To believe that making it legal would have encouraged more drinking is ridiculous, because making it illegal did nothing but allow it to be easily accessible to underage drinkers.