43 replies to this topic

[Darkademic]

It was discussed a little bit on the very old forums but never in any great detail.

Do you think drugs should be legalized? If so, to what extent. If not, why not, and what do you think the harmful repercussions would be if they were?

I am in favour of total legalization. I do not think it is the place of the government to tell people what substances they can put into their bodies. Anyway, many of the problems that people say are caused by drugs I think are caused by the fact that drugs are illegal rather then the drugs themselves. People have the right to abuse their bodies in any way they want. If I want to drink bleach or cut myself, or do anything else which seriously harms my body, the state has no right to order me not to - the same goes for taking drugs.

That said, I am personally against taking any drugs including alcohol because I don't like any of the effects they have. Cannabis is perhaps the only drug I am not totally against because in small doses it can help one relax and the harmful effects are negligible. It can also help with certain painful or dehabilitating diseases/conditions.

[Twilight]

Yes - completely.

It doesn't make a difference if drugs are legal or not to the drug user. He or she will still acquire them. Let the irrationalists pollute themselves if they choose to.

[Arbiter]

I do not think heroin should be legalized because it is so addictive and potentially extremely harmful, not just to the user(s). Most other drugs I think should be legalized, as I agree with the above point that drug users will acquire drugs legally or illegally. I just think that making heroin legally (and therefore widely) available would be dangerous.

[Darkademic]

I do not think heroin should be legalized because it is so addictive and potentially extremely harmful, not just to the user(s).

Why only heroin? All drugs are addictive. Nicotine is the most addictive drug known, some say it's five times more addictive than heroin, and it's even more lethal. Just illegalizing heroin seems a bit arbitrary to me.

[LordSilly]

Alcohol and tobacco are legal and they kill thousands of people. Cannabis is illegal and the lethal dose is about a tonne of the stuff hitting you from a great height.

Sure weed probably causes psychological problems if you smoke trees of it, but compare that to all the families ruined by violent alcoholics. All the people dying of liver failure and lung cancer and all that. There is not one recorded case of someone dying of cannabis in world literature. Not one!

So why not all drugs? Sure heroin and cocaine are hideously addictive, but people will take it anyway. At least with it legalised there are no dealers, no gangs, no bad shit and no accidental overdoses thanks to proper regulation (not unlike food standards), and better education.

Yeah I would say legalize and regulate.

[XOmniverse]

Why only heroin? All drugs are addictive. Nicotine is the most addictive drug known, some say it's five times more addictive than heroin, and it's even more lethal. Just illegalizing heroin seems a bit arbitrary to me.

Small nitpick; there are some drugs, such as marijuana, that have little or no physical addiction associated with them. Psychological addiction is another matter, but someone can be psychologically addicted to basically anything.

That being said, all drugs should be legal. People own their bodies and have the right to do whatever they want to themselves.

[Darkademic]

Small nitpick; there are some drugs, such as marijuana, that have little or no physical addiction associated with them. Psychological addiction is another matter, but someone can be psychologically addicted to basically anything.

True enough - I did cannabis for a good few years and never felt any kind of addiction to it. The long term damage it can do is questionable, but I don't really think it's worth the risk, it never entertained me massively.

[Donkzy]

with out going to deep in to my past, drugs do destroy your life, but they are everywhere and especially in the UK are a normal way of socialising, I think if the government was to take ccontrol of this and to help people with problems and to take the control away from the dealers it cant b a bad thing. plus they could tax the hell out of em.
cannabis in my view is as or even less harmful than alcohol, but other harder drugs heroin and coke are bad these will destroy life's
Alcohol is also in my view bad, its far to easy for people to become dependent on this as a crutch, say bad day at work have a few beers this can so easily lead to addiction and if alcohol was just discovered today it would not be on sale in every supermarket or shop like it is now it would b class B at a minimum but it is socially acceptable so its ok
but things in moderation are better and if the governmant was to control this it would help a lot

[ReaverMage]

That being said, all drugs should be legal. People own their bodies and have the right to do whatever they want to themselves.

That's definitely not the point- Sure, people can do what they want to themselves, but the problem arises when the effects of drugs leads to harm of others.

I voted Yes, some categories should be legalised. Marijuana is psychologically addictive but not chemically in many forms, and the only real harm in it is the demotivational part, and I think the use of it should be limited. This means moderate amounts won't negatively affect others very much.

[Murum]

i for one disagree all drugs should be banned and persecuted even severely punish it is in my belief that drug use and drug legalization will only lead to the degradation of the evolution of human kind one way or another
even if you do give the excuse that drug users will find em anyway it legalizing them will promote non-drug users to try them and potentially become addicts themselves

[ReaverMage]

i for one disagree all drugs should be banned and persecuted even severely punish it is in my belief that drug use and drug legalization will only lead to the degradation of the evolution of human kind one way or another
even if you do give the excuse that drug users will find em anyway it legalizing them will promote non-drug users to try them and potentially become addicts themselves

What?

How the hell could drugs lead to the degradation of human evolution?

[Bibidiboo]

I do not think heroin should be legalized because it is so addictive and potentially extremely harmful, not just to the user(s). Most other drugs I think should be legalized, as I agree with the above point that drug users will acquire drugs legally or illegally. I just think that making heroin legally (and therefore widely) available would be dangerous.

I agree with your first point but not having it legalized does not help!!

There's been a LOT of research on this stuff, for example in Sweden they did a research on 100-200 people, they gave them legal Heroine in a save environment, within 6 months over 50% of them were working steadily at a workplace, not being homeless and without any problems, the rest was doing a lot better than most homeless heroine junkies.

Look at it this way :
Do you want people to
a) Be addicted to Heroine, live on the streets, get syringes infected with AIDS, Hepatitis, other diseases for their Heroine + having almost no chance of recovery. or
b) Be addicted to Heroine, get their drugs in a safe environment, not getting any horrible diseases, pretty good chance of working and paying for your own house again + a MUCH higher chance of recovery and not being a problem any more + you can TAX the heroine! more money for the government!!

In my opinion, there's almost no downsides to legalizing it, but I also think there should be some restrictions in place for hard drugs. And using a less extreme example, Marihuana : zero downsides, more taxes less addictive than Tobacco and has no long-term effect unless you're under 17.

PS Tobacco and Alcohol kill more people than most hard drugs( except cocaine + heroine for alcohol ) which are legalized and not restricted at all. XTC for example kills like 30000% less people than tobacco(or some extreme example like this, in the Netherlands there's about 8 XTC deaths per year, and thousands of tobacco-related deaths. That's also because in Holland there's places where you can check the quality / deadlyness because it's bad Q of XTC, and you get free water in any clubs which has shown to reduce deaths by dehydration and other issues ), and is seen as worse!

One more point, if it's legalized you can keep track of it. This helps a lot with identifying people more likely in trouble, and restricting it.

Edited by Bibidiboo, 25 March 2012 - 09:26 pm.

[Rabar69]

I agree with it, and those that are against drugs and are all for alcohol just don't obviously realise the FACTS and are spoon fed bullshit about how everything that is illegal is bad and because alcohol is legal then it must be better than drugs?? NO OFC NOT! lol!

If cannibis was legalised then i think people would actually do it less because humans get a thrill out of rebelling to laws and that's why people do it.. Crime would go down because "Drug money" wont be a huge thing anymore because it will be reasonably priced and from authorised dealers

Drugs are a huge part of Theft and Robbery but that's only because of the street price of drugs...

World would be a better place legalising it cos the authorities could use the time they waste sniffing out and arresting dealers to then use that time catching murderers.. The proper criminals..

[Bibidiboo]

I agree with it, and those that are against drugs and are all for alcohol just don't obviously realise the FACTS and are spoon fed bullshit about how everything that is illegal is bad and because alcohol is legal then it must be better than drugs?? NO OFC NOT! lol!

If cannibis was legalised then i think people would actually do it less because humans get a thrill out of rebelling to laws and that's why people do it.. Crime would go down because "Drug money" wont be a huge thing anymore because it will be reasonably priced and from authorised dealers

Drugs are a huge part of Theft and Robbery but that's only because of the street price of drugs...

World would be a better place legalising it cos the authorities could use the time they waste sniffing out and arresting dealers to then use that time catching murderers.. The proper criminals..

yup, look at the US. Of people aged above 21 33% of the US has gotten a police charge once or more, and most of those are from Marihuana. Marihuana has hardly any bad effects and just should not be illegal. [ I believe those were the correct statistics, the 33% may even be more. ]

Then look at the crime rates in big cities, lots of it is drug crime(stealing stuff can also be drug crime, more money for drugs). Look at portugal for example, in Lisbon they did this big test and they legalized most drugs. In 10 years their crime rate dropped by 50%. FIFTY PERCENT! that's a HUGE difference. Practical evidence. And now in South America many countries are talking about the taboo on legalizing drugs and are trying to do it! I'm all for this.

[harquij]

I live in Portugal and they did not legalized drugs what they did is that they decriminalized the use of drugs so if you are able to have a small amount of drugs usually up until 2g (2.5g in case of weed) and not go to jail or even be charged because of it, though if you happen to have above this limit will be considered traffic and you will be in trouble also selling any kind of drug is illegal. I was still pretty young when they made these changes so i cant tell by personal experience but its true that the crime rate in Portugal decreased allot because of this measure, also now the support given to drug addicts is huge they are given blankets food and syringes and help from clinics not only in Lisbon but all across the country.

The next step for my country i think would be legalizing the sales, i believe this would be very good because by doing so we drug addicts would be paying taxes, drugs would be sold under controlled environment thus the risk of intoxication through alteration of drugs would be none and the minor wouldn't have so easy access to them , also personally i would love this because as a weed smoker i wouldn't have to become in contact with more heavy drugs and thus facing the risk of any day being sold something bad and ruining my life.

On a whole other point if the legalization became global i think it would help facing the economical crisis the world is going through i don't know about numbers but i am sure it would be a huge factor on the global economy as there are allot of ppl using throughout the world

[Bibidiboo]

I live in Portugal and they did not legalized drugs what they did is that they decriminalized the use of drugs so if you are able to have a small amount of drugs usually up until 2g (2.5g in case of weed) and not go to jail or even be charged because of it, though if you happen to have above this limit will be considered traffic and you will be in trouble also selling any kind of drug is illegal. I was still pretty young when they made these changes so i cant tell by personal experience but its true that the crime rate in Portugal decreased allot because of this measure, also now the support given to drug addicts is huge they are given blankets food and syringes and help from clinics not only in Lisbon but all across the country.

The next step for my country i think would be legalizing the sales, i believe this would be very good because by doing so we drug addicts would be paying taxes, drugs would be sold under controlled environment thus the risk of intoxication through alteration of drugs would be none and the minor wouldn't have so easy access to them , also personally i would love this because as a weed smoker i wouldn't have to become in contact with more heavy drugs and thus facing the risk of any day being sold something bad and ruining my life.

On a whole other point if the legalization became global i think it would help facing the economical crisis the world is going through i don't know about numbers but i am sure it would be a huge factor on the global economy as there are allot of ppl using throughout the world

Oopsie that's what I meant, decriminalize is pretty close to legalize but that's what I read

And yeah, taxes on all those drugs is.. well.. a giant fricking amount.