Can anyone give 1 legit reason why recreational use of drugs should not be legalized?

In my book, there is no reason why the use of drugs in one's own home should ever be a crime. Yes, driving under the influence, and other things that can harm others should be illegal, but the use of any drug, on it's own, should never be criminalized.

I am calling out anti-drug people to name a single reason why drug users should be stripped of their freedom of choice, and made criminals for sitting at home and smoking a joint or shooting up with heroin, or using any other drugs. Keep in mind that we are talking only about the use of these drugs in a person's home. Any actions or choices that effect others would still be regulated.

 

If any of them even respond to this thread, you'll probably get some collectivist bull(*)(*)(*)(*) argument based on nothing factual.

 

How do you ensure that they stay home once intoxicated?

 

As we all know Gov are as good as front men for mafia.

Mafia often do not care what they trade in, as long as there is profit, no moral required.

Thus, it puzzles me why Gov have not followed the money, on this one.

The taxation alone could be worth a tidy sum.

Then there are licences to be sold.

To name but two ways for them to make money, and they would save you $$$ on the criminal spend.

The quality and price would be regulated, thus taking the 'dealers' out of business.

It has happened, with some drugs, in some Western cities, like Amsterdam. But mostly not.

All the objections can be debunked and are myth. So, why haven't they followed the money, when they are quite happy for us to kill ourselves, in other ways, worse ways?

The most logical answer for me is that to the men at the top, it must mean more to them $$$ to keep it illegal. Haven't the CIA been strongly implicted in heroin business, in the past, and god knows what else, so maybe, by being involved in it, then also being the 'cure for the problem', this works better for them?

I am also of the view that they would sooner you rotten your brain and organs, than any drug or thing that is natural, and may cause you to think, or feel a deeper spiritual experience.

There is no really good arguement for banning the sale of magic mushrooms, for instance, or LSD.

 

By that logic, alcohol should be illegal.

 

But it's not, and we see the results thereof. Should we throw more fuel on the fire for the sake of being principled?

 

The only respect that I have are for those who are principled. Any argument that can be made to ban drugs can also be made to ban cigarettes and alcohol. For God's sake the US banned lawn darts because people might get hurt. Lawn darts!!!

Either you ban it all or not. Don't give me this argument that someone might get hurt from legal drugs. People die from drunk driving everyday.

 

Your brain is what creates your reality. And that reality in the brain is comprised of chemicals, in practice, that configure or act in a given way,to give us the reality that we experience, our thoughts, etc.

If you alter, temporarily, the chemical coding, if you will, which is really what one would be doing when they ingest shrooms, what they are actually doing maybe is literally altering their reality levels.

For the time that their brain is operating at that level, they are still experiencing a reality, merely one that has been altered from it's ordinary state.

Think of going in an elevator to floor ten, each day, because you did not see it could go up to 20. When you rose up through the other floors, you would be opening your brain up to what was on all those floors.

LSD has been used BY the US Gov, as an experimental drug, on troops. The film Jacobs Ladder as based on it.

Tim Leary or McKenna, one of the two, found that it's use reduced repeat offending in criminals.

There have been other intersting finds with it's use.

Ecstacy(pure MDMA), has been know to have a remarkable impact on those with Parkinsons.

 

Fair point, I've always wanted to own hand grenades and landmines.

 

I'd go for no drugs. Ban them all.

But I'm sure if that becomes a policy, the definition of what one considers a "drug" will be debated in order to extend control over what can be banned and what cannot be banned.

Double-edges everywhere...

 

Yes.

And the following day - 'Let's ban criminals'.

 

It's not about throwing fuel on the fire, it's about letting people live their lives the way they see fit, free of tyranny.

If someone commits an actual crime while high, drunk, etc, prosecute them for that particular crime.

 

You don't. The same deterrents that keep drunk people from driving keep high people from driving, insofar as they do.

 

Coffee?

 

That you can prosecute them after the fact, does not prevent the tyranny experienced by the victim of the crime committed by the person who was intoxicated. How does the drug users' 'liberties' trump that of his/her victim?

For example, if I work in a dangerous industrial environment, next to someone who's been binging on meth for a couple weeks, and totally out of his mind, and end up being gravely injured or killed as a result of that... how is it that his freedoms outweigh mine?

 

Scientists study possible health benefits of LSD and ecstasy

Growing number of people taking psychedelic drugs to help them cope with conditions such as chronic anxiety attacks


A growing number of people are taking LSD and other psychedelic drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy to help them cope with a variety of conditions including anorexia nervosa, cluster headaches and chronic anxiety attacks.

The emergence of a community that passes the drugs between users on the basis of friendship, support and need – with money rarely involved – comes amid a resurgence of research into the possible therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. This is leading to a growing optimism among those using the drugs that soon they may be able to obtain medicines based on psychedelics from their doctor, rather than risk jail for taking illicit drugs.

Among those in Britain already using the drugs and hoping for a change in the way they are viewed is Anna Jones (not her real name), a 35-year-old university lecturer, who takes LSD once or twice a year. She fears that without an occasional dose she will go back to the drinking problem she left behind 14 years ago with the help of the banned drug.

LSD, the drug synonymous with the 1960s counter-culture, changed her life, she says. "For me it was the catalyst to give up destructive behaviour – heavy drinking and smoking. As a student I used to drink two or three bottles of wine, two or three days a week, because I didn't have many friends and didn't feel comfortable in my own skin.

"Then I took a hit of LSD one day and didn't feel alone any more. It helped me to see myself differently, increase my self-confidence, lose my desire to drink or smoke and just feel at one with the world. I haven't touched alcohol or cigarettes since that day in 1995 and am much happier than before."

Many others are using the drugs to deal with chronic anxiety attacks brought on by terminal illness such as cancer.

Research was carried out in the 1950s and 1960s into psychedelics. In some places they were even used as a treatment for anxiety, depression and addiction. But a backlash against LSD – owing to concerns that the powerful hallucinogen was becoming widespread as a recreational drug, and fear that excessive use could trigger mental health conditions such as schizophrenia – led to prohibition of research in the 1970s.

Under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act it is classified as a Class A, schedule 1 substance – which means not only is LSD considered highly dangerous, but it is deemed to have no medical research value.

Now, though, distinguished academics and highly respected institutions are looking again at whether LSD and other psychedelics might help patients. Psychiatrist Dr John Halpern, of Harvard medical school in the US, found that almost all of 53 people with cluster headaches who illegally took LSD or psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, obtained relief from the searing pain. He and an international team have also begun investigating whether 2-Bromo-LSD, a non-psychedelic version of LSD known as BOL, can help ease the same condition.

Studies into how the drug may be helping such people are also being carried out in the UK. Amanda Feilding is the director of the Oxford-based Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust that investigates consciousness, its altered states and the effects of psychedelics and meditation. She is a key figure in the revival of scientific interest in psychedelics and expresses her excitement about the initial findings of two overseas studies with which her foundation is heavily involved.

"One, at the University of California in Berkeley, was the first research into LSD to get approval from regulators and ethics bodies since the 1970s," she said. Those in the study are the first to be allowed to take LSD legally in decades as part of research into whether it aids creativity. "LSD is a potentially very valuable substance for human health and happiness."

The other is a Swiss trial in which the drug is give alongside psychotherapy to people who have a terminal condition to help them cope with the profound anxiety brought on by impending death. "If you handle LSD with care, it isn't any more dangerous than other therapies," said Dr Peter Gasser, the psychiatrist leading the trial.

At Johns Hopkins University in Washington, another trial is examining whether psilocybin can aid psychotherapy for those with chronic substance addiction who have not been helped by more conventional treatment.

Professor Colin Blakemore, a former chief executive of the Medical Research Council, said the class-A status of psychedelics such as LSD should not stop them being explored as potential therapies. "No drug is completely safe, and that includes medical drugs as well as illegal substances," he said. "But we have well-developed and universally respected methods of assessing the balance of benefit and harm for new medicines.

"If there are claims of benefits from substances that are not regulated medicines – even including illegal drugs – it is important that they should be tested as thoroughly for efficacy and safety as any new conventional drug."

Past reputations may make it hard to get approval for psychedelic medicines, according to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

"The known adverse effect profiles of psychedelic drugs would have to be considered very carefully in the risk/benefit analysis before the drugs may be approved for medicinal use," said a spokeswoman. "These products, if approved, are likely to be classified as a prescription-only medicine and also likely to remain on the dangerous drug list, which means that their supply would be strictly controlled."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/oct/23/lsd-ecstacy-health-benefits

 

The recreational use of drugs should not be legalized due to the evident negative externalities. The better option is to set an effective decriminalization threshold based upon the type of drugs, regulate the flow and quality of drugs in and between countries through national and international legal arrangements, and establish a graduated tax system in accordance with the extent of negative externalities posed by each drug.

 

So, freedom for those who wish to use drugs > than health/safety of those who might be affected by them?

 

[video=youtube;EzVu0YauAkw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzVu0YauAkw[/video]

 

If they don't they will be arrested. But using that logic, alcohol should be a crime as well, and so should taking medication that impairs you.

 

The result of making it illegal in the 20's was the rise of organized crime and men like Al Capone. More crime is caused by the outlawing of popular drugs than is caused by them being legal.

 

That would cause crime rates to skyrocket. Prohibition of sought after things only allows criminals to profit off of their illegal sale.

 

And again I ask, should we further contribute to the problem for the sake of being principled?

How about someone who decides they'd like to drop 2 or 3 hits of acid... since he can while at home... but has to get up and go to work the next day so he can pay the bills and feed the kids? Forget about the fact that he's not coming down for 12 or so hours... meh, no big deal.

 

So you want to make someone a criminal for what they COULD do while on drugs and noy what they actually do.

 

But this doesn't neccessarily mean that we're better off today with alcohol being legalized. I agree that prohibition did not achieve it's intended goal, but this does not mean that we'd be worse off today if alcohol were still illegal.