On 7/28/2010 2:06 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:13:22 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>> Why would a team of medical experts
>> who've studied the addictive effects of drugs and the damage they do to
>> the human body know more about it than some random guy on the street?
>
> If it were the team of medical experts who were asserting what I'm
> terming the "moral superiority", that would be one thing.  But here in
> the US, it's largely the same people who insist that because Evolution is
> a "theory", the "theory" of creationism should also be taught AS PART OF
> SCIENCE CURRICULUM.  (Caps for emphasis)
>
> In other words, it's not people who have medical training or even
> chemistry training.  It's people who think Evolution is a myth
> perpetrated by the liberal media (in extreme cases) and who don't think
> there's such a thing as mutation even though it's *all around them* - and
> they religiously go and get flu vaccinations because the flu strain has
> evolved to be able to counter the last vaccination.
>
> Look at the case for medical marijuana, for example - here in the US, it
> is a federal crime to grow or smoke pot, even though some states have
> legalized it to some extent.  The *doctors* (who I'd consider to have
> medical training and who have studied the effects and have decided that
> there's a benefit, for example, for people with chronic untreatable pain)
> are in favor of it, and it's the anti-science people who think it should
> be left illegal.
>
> What is a real problem with drug use today (at least in the US) is that
> the quality control for those drugs is nonexistent - and that's part (but
> not the entire) of the reason why there are problems with drug users.
> Now, turn it into a well-regulated industry with standards of production,
> and you see several positive side effects:
>
>   * "Product" quality increases and you end up with fewer accidental
> overdoses (which can happen when one batch is really weak and the next is
> overly strong - IOW, no consistent quality control).
Uh.. Sorry, but this is total bull. **Most** drugs need to stay illegal. 
They have no medical use, their effects require you keep taking higher 
doses to get the same effect, due to how they mangle your brain 
chemistry, they often do serious long term damage, and they create a 
danger to the public that, even more than alcohol, which you need to 
drink a fair amount of first, even a single dose causes for the drug.

More to the point, overdose is caused as much by the need to keep 
increasing dosage as it is by the effects of addins. A consistent dose, 
with purity control, simply won't help *at all*. You would still need to 
take more and more of it, to get the same result, and, in many cases, 
its the impurities that keeps it from killing you dead the first time 
you take it.

Point being, this is a bit like saying that alcohol should be classed 
the same as hemlock, since both are poisons, but as long as hemlock was 
properly regulated, and checked for purity, etc., it would be fine to 
sell it, like like alcohol. Its not the same thing. Pot, or even coca 
(before some idiot purified it into cocaine), is closer to alcohol in 
effect than it is to say, crack, which **should** stay illegal, since 
you can OD on some of that stuff just by taking it too fracking often, 
not just taking a bad dose.

I seriously hope you where just failing to make a proper distinction here.

>   * You have fewer people being locked up for non-violent offenses (such
> as possession or possession with intent to use/intent to distribute).
The problem is, we are willing, based on moralizing, and "they are not 
victims, it was a choice", bullshit logic, to lock up *everyone*, from 
the dealers, to the guy that had a small back of the cheapest weed 
possible in his car. We make no distinction between which drug it was, 
whether they are a dealer or a user, and we spend probably less than 1% 
what we do to arrest people to **treat** them, so they don't use in 
jail, or keep using, after they get out. Worse, more than half of the 
"treatment" we respect in this country isn't medical, but bullshit like 
AA for druggies, which **doesn't work**, because it doesn't stop them 
wanting the drug, or even accept that it *is* medical, not religious, or 
cultural, or 100% about whether someone "chose" to do it. Imho, the 
idiots, like the moron pushing his, "Read the Bible and you will be 
cured of everything! Addictions have nothing to do with biology or 
science, or medicine!", types should be the ones in fracking jail.

>   * Those who are distributing have to be licensed to do so - so you know
> most of who is distributing them and you know they have met some standard
> of knowledge in order to legally distribute.
For the sane drugs, definitely. Same can be said for more than a few 
other things, including prostitution, which we have never gotten rid of, 
but *have* turned into something where you can't get police protection, 
health care, or a safe work environment, but *may* instead get arrested, 
killed, hooked on drugs by the pimp, or even sold from one pimp to the 
next. All hail our, "moral" solution to the problem.

>   * You will have created a market that you can collect taxes from where
> money is currently changing hands and nothing goes to pay for services
> that those users consume as a result of their use (just like smoking/
> drinking)
>   * Prices can be standardized and normalized, potentially reducing
> violent crime from people who can't afford to get their 'fix' today
>
No it won't. As I already said, 90% of the drugs out there make the 
person need more, and more, and more, the longer they use them, its the 
nature of the chemical process they work by. This, short of a treatment 
like Ibogaine appears to provide, is **permanent** and **cumulative**. 
The guy breaking into someone's house to steal their TV, sell it for 
$10, and then break into 2-3 other places, to make up the remaining 
amount needed to buy their "fix", isn't some guy smoking pot, and they 
are not someone that is going to a) be off the drug when at work or b) 
smoking pot. They are going to be someone taking crack, who paid $2 for 
their first hit, $5 for the next one, $10 for the next, $20 for the 
next, and now, at this point, is robbing 4-5 people a day, so they can 
get 3-4 hits a day, because one hit won't do it any more. Purer product, 
as you suggest earlier, does nothing but make the initial hit worse, and 
escalate this process **faster**.

Pot and other drugs are *not* in the same category *at all*, 
biologically, chemically, effect wise, with respect to what danger they 
represent to the public, by the person taking them, etc, as the vast 
majority of the crap they have "engineered" to give massive highs. Its 
like comparing someone that likes holding up a lighter at concerts with 
someone whose obsessed with making, and lighting off, containers of 
napalm in random parking lots. No one that understands the difference, 
especially on a biochemical level, would claim we would be in *great 
shape* if we treated all of it the same, by decriminalizing it.

No, the problem the US has, is a 100% complete and total denial of how 
bad the problem **really is** with most of the drugs, the false 
perception that AA type programs work, (they actually fail at a rate of 
close to 90%), how barely more effective "real" rehab treatments are, at 
this point, (since they still rely on the idea you can just learn to 
avoid it, without fixing the chemical problems), and a complete and 
total refusal of most of the general populous to accept the idea that 
the solution to the problem may *require* something as extreme to 
"reset" the brain, as what screwed an addicts brain up in the first 
place. It is, in fact, the argument that has been made for *at least* 20 
years, maybe longer. "We **will not** allow you to research, or use, a 
drug, which has narcotic/psychodelic properties, to *cure* addiction to 
some other drug!" You can see this argument as far back as at least 
1976-1983, when the same, "Why can't they try this as a cure?", argument 
was being made on shows like Quincy, M.E., and some others. The reaction 
from most politicians, much of the public, etc., has been everything 
from, "We don't want something 'worse', like this, which people would 
might take as recreation, but isn't addictive.", to, "Why are you trying 
to cure addiction to drugs with drugs, instead of Jesus?", or similar 
idiocy. And, in all of it, is a perception that is no more rational than 
if 90% of the country told a guy that lost his leg in an accident, "You 
chose to do what lost lost you your leg, so stop whining about your 
'problem', and just walk already, why the hell should I help you by 
paying for a new leg!?"

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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