On 8/3/2010 1:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> We know what open drug use *has* done in
>> cases where it took place, because people get stoned, drive, go to work,
>> etc., all the damn time, and get other people killed/hurt.
>
> That's about the "after" issues, which yes, if they break the law, they
> should be punished for.  I've never said "don't punish those who put
> others in harm's way".  But I have a hard time criminalizing, say,
> smoking pot because it's *smoking pot*.  If they get in a car and get
> stopped, throw the book at them.  If they stay at home, leave them alone.
>
Which is only relevant if you have some minimal certainty that they will 
stay home. You have, seems to me, if you are dealing with something 
strong enough to be a serious problem (pot not being one of them), you 
can treat them like, say, a viral outbreak - a) as a potential host, or 
b) as a carrier. The later you don't **allow** to leave. The former, you 
make damn sure isn't exposed in the first place, so can't become a 
threat. With dangerous drugs, that can and do cause problems, we have 
done the absurd equivalent of the former, attempting to tell people, 
"Don't breath, you might catch it!", when its so prevalent and available 
that almost everyone **will be** exposed. We are, for the most part, 
unwilling to do the later at all, because its not seen as necessary, or 
worse, its seen as *more wrong* to have drug clubs, and semi-safe 
places, instead of having everyone do it, and random place they can 
find. Not that I think, even if such existed, it would be a reasonable 
solution, any more than allowing opium dens once was.

There is a third option - cure the actual condition, so it doesn't 
spread. This is expensive, doesn't produce nice, convenient, politically 
useful, results, which can be shown on the nightly news, to *prove* the 
money isn't being wasted. And then.. there is the subset of assholes, 
who, much like the anti-LGBT types, who react to the problem they way 
anti-LGBT have sometimes been treated when dealing with AIDS, and just 
proclaim, "Why the fuck should we help these people, its their own 
fault!" I massively object to this argument, for the simple fact that 
its a case of herd immunity. If you don't fix the AIDS problem, the risk 
of my, and everyone else, being impacted by it increases, for every 
single new person infected. Same with drugs. The more people are taking 
hard drugs, and not being helped to quit, and the more time is wasted 
*not* finding a better, more effective, solution, that actually cures 
the addiction, the higher the risk that I, someone I know, or one of my 
own family members, will end up at risk, because of it. I would have to 
be an idiot to just shrug it off as either, "Their problem, since they 
chose that life.", or, "Not my problem, since its some other random 
person that will end up in a gang shoot out, or next to some Meth cooker 
that gets the formula wrong and blows up 2 city blocks."

You have to stop people needing them, and using them when its dangerous, 
or you can't stop people selling them. All you do is put people in jail 
*after* they caused the inevitable. And, even "legal" drugs that you can 
get via prescription, have a black market, with the same gang warfare, 
where its rare enough, and people willing to doctor the product. The 
only thing worse, is not controlling them at all.

>> If I was also suggesting stopping hang gliding, or skying, you would
>> have a point. What I am talking about is the equivalent of someone
>> suffering damage that leads them to, without real control, start hang
>> gliding into buildings, or skying through crowds. The initial decision
>> to hang glide, or sky, is not at issue, even if the *reason* for the
>> damage, by pure accident, was a result of slamming into a building, or
>> skying through a crowd of people. Its not relevant to the problem.
>
> "skying" - I'm not sure what that is.
>
Yeah, yeah.. I know, some thigs I spel bawdly.. lol

> But when someone starts engaging in that kind of behaviour, they then
> have the choice to either listen to what others say ("dude, that's messed
> up, you need to get some help") or decide on their own that that's
> destructive and dangerous behaviour, or they can be taken into custody at
> that time for their illegal activity.  Saying "the drugs made me do it"
> is an excuse.
>
> Jim
The former pretty much *never* happens. You have to decide that its 
something worth stopping, and then, like a lot of things, a certain 
percentage will find that they simply *can't*, no matter how much help 
they get, because their brain chemistry just doesn't work that way, and 
so they have a harder, or impossible, time stopping. That is why, if you 
want to cure everyone, and break the whole drug abuse cycle at all, you 
need to find something that corrects the problem, not just hope people 
give it up, then stay that way. This is true for everything from crack, 
to anabolic steroids, to race car driving. If you are prone to "needing" 
the fix, more than average, even deciding that you need to stop may not 
be enough to stop, once started. Something like crack just amplifies the 
problem.

-- 
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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