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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A little rabbit is running happily through the forest when he stumbles upon 
a giraffe rolling a joint.

The rabbit looks at the giraffe and says, "Giraffe my friend, why do you do 
this? Come. Run with me through the forest! You'll feel so much better!"

The giraffe looks at him, looks at the joint, tosses it and goes off running 
with the rabbit. Then they come across an elephant doing coke.

So the rabbit again says, "Elephant my friend, why do you do this? Think 
about your health. Come. Run with us through the pretty forest, you'll see, 
you'll feel so good!"

The elephant looks at them, looks at his razor, mirror and coke, then tosses 
them and starts running with the rabbit and giraffe. The three animals then 
come across a lion about to shoot up.

"Lion my friend, why do you do this? Think about your health! Come. Run with 
us through the beautiful forest and you'll feel so good!" The lion looks at 
him, puts down his needle, and mauls the rabbit.

The giraffe and elephant watch in horror and look at him and ask, "Lion, why 
did you do this? He was merely trying to help you."

The lion answers, "That little bastard! He makes me run around the forest 
like a f'ing idiot every time he's on ecstasy!"

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On 7/28/2010 5:21 AM, Stephen wrote:
>> Understand, I have never done drugs, I never intend to do drugs, and I
>> have no desire to do them. I personally wouldn't because I do think it
>> would be bad for me (in a number of ways). I come at this from a
>> standpoint of not having experienced anything related to the types of
>> drugs we're talking about (I once got pretty tripped out on Hydrocodone,
>> which I react very badly to, but that's a slightly different story
>> because it was something obtained with a prescription).
>>
>> If someone wants to be addicted to cigarettes, pot, alcohol, etc - as
>> long as they're not impacting me (through secondhand smoke, for example),
>> I don't care. They can knock themselves out. Once it leaves them, just
>> as with alcohol, then there are consequences and let the consequences be
>> steep (as they are for DUI, for example).
>>

Problem, as I maybe muddled a bit in the other post where I said this, 
is there are drugs, and then there are drugs.

You get mild ones, like pot, you get the harder ones, which you keep 
needing to take more and more of, but which are fairly tame, then you 
get into the stuff where the things you describe above are the "norm", 
for when the hit starts to wear off. Those later ones are not going to 
be "better" if you make any of it legal, or give out prescriptions, or 
build something like the old opium dens, to do it "safely", etc. About 
10% of the population have odd quirks in their biology that make them 
able to take "most" of this stuff, and walk away without needing it 
again. On the other end is the 10% that will drop dead, the first time 
they take something, the rest are like someone who intentionally jammed 
their foot in a wood chipper, because someone said it would be fun, and 
societies reaction, as a whole, to those people ranges from, "Pray and 
it will grow back, but don't go to them damn doctors.", to, "Why should 
the state use my money to give you an artificial foot, or therapy, its 
your own damn fault!" Problem with this idiot way of looking at the 
problem is, of course, if there where thousands of people missing feet, 
all over the place, it *might* just have an impact of everyone else's 
well being and safety, thus making both the "do nothing, its all in your 
mind" people, and the, "I won't pay for it!", people, all complete 
idiots. But, then.. I suppose you could just fix the problem by throwing 
everyone that is missing a foot in jail. It would be so much easier, 
even if it costs 500 times as much.

-- 
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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On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:21:43 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Problem, as I maybe muddled a bit in the other post where I said this,
> is there are drugs, and then there are drugs.

Sure, I don't know that I would be for legalization of heroin or crack 
cocaine.

> You get mild ones, like pot, you get the harder ones, which you keep
> needing to take more and more of, but which are fairly tame, then you
> get into the stuff where the things you describe above are the "norm",
> for when the hit starts to wear off. 

I don't know though that I buy the argument about "gateway drugs".  From 
my perspective, it's about personal responsibility and self-control.

> Those later ones are not going to
> be "better" if you make any of it legal, or give out prescriptions, or
> build something like the old opium dens, to do it "safely", etc. About
> 10% of the population have odd quirks in their biology that make them
> able to take "most" of this stuff, and walk away without needing it
> again. On the other end is the 10% that will drop dead, the first time
> they take something, the rest are like someone who intentionally jammed
> their foot in a wood chipper, because someone said it would be fun, and
> societies reaction, as a whole, to those people ranges from, "Pray and
> it will grow back, but don't go to them damn doctors.", to, "Why should
> the state use my money to give you an artificial foot, or therapy, its
> your own damn fault!" Problem with this idiot way of looking at the
> problem is, of course, if there where thousands of people missing feet,
> all over the place, it *might* just have an impact of everyone else's
> well being and safety, thus making both the "do nothing, its all in your
> mind" people, and the, "I won't pay for it!", people, all complete
> idiots. But, then.. I suppose you could just fix the problem by throwing
> everyone that is missing a foot in jail. It would be so much easier,
> even if it costs 500 times as much.

Or you could hold people accountable for their personal decisions.  They 
stick their foot in the woodchipper, fine, but that injury isn't covered 
by insurance because it's self-inflicted (for example).  Action and 
consequence.

And yes, that would have an impact on their immediate family.  Again, 
that's a consequence of their action.  My family member who went to 
prison for his DUI offense had consequences for his actions as well, and 
they affected more than him.  That's life, and he's accepted those 
consequences.

It bothers me greatly that people think there should be no consequences 
for what they do.

Jim

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On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:11:06 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

>>   * "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.

I agree that some do, and I mentioned a couple in another thread.

> 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.

PMFA, but where did you get your medical degree from?  If you're going to 
make assertions like that, I'd like to see them backed up by some sort of 
credentials that show you have some expertise in the field.  (And before 
you ask, no, I don't have such expertise).  Or a cite from a reputable 
source would suffice as well.

> 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.

That depends, I imagine, on the individual and their own sense of self-
control.  To wit, not everyone who takes crack ends up dead of it.

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

Perhaps.

>>   * 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. 

Totally agreed.  We have a serious meth problem here in Utah (the court 
case I was on the jury for was about that, actually).

> 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.

"Frakking".  Derived from "Frak".  We've been over that before. <scnr>

Seriously, though, I would tend to agree up to the "put the religion 
pushers in jail" bit.

>>   * 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.

Agreed as well.

>>   * 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)

Maybe where you are, not in Utah.  Tax dollars fund the police 
department, who get called out when a druggie is whacked out and acting 
out.

>>   * 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**.

Depends on the drug.

> 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**.

And you arrest the guy breaking into someone's house to steal their TV 
for burglary/larceny.  Lock 'em up, put 'em in jail.  They've done 
something that actually affects someone else.  Same for the guy tweaking 
out who assaults someone.  The guy sitting in his home stoned off his ass 
on LSD, mushrooms, or pot isn't.  Hell, even the guy doing crack who 
isn't out committing crimes against other people isn't harming anyone but 
himself - until he needs to get his fix and he can't afford it so he 
steals a car.  Then you book him on grand theft auto.  Simple.

Jim

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On 28/07/2010 6:57 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>   Pot?  Gives one the munchies (so
> I'm told).
>

It might do that indeed ;-)

>> >  If you tell some people that
>> >  something is not allowed then that will make it exciting and glamorous
>> >  to them. Prohibition did not work in the USA and the “war on drugs” is
>> >  IMO a waste of time and resources.
> Exactly.  But don't get me started on the whole phraseology of "the war
> on 'x'", because I think the whole idea is stupid.  A war is something
> that*should*  be winnable, and you can't win against a concept.
>

Again, we are in agreement.

>> >  Consider the Netherlands where pot while not legal is controlled and
>> >  sold in coffee shops. This has not made the Dutch into a nation of pot
>> >  heads. Most Dutch people I’ve met and worked with are quite dismissive
>> >  of cannabis, it’s what you try when you are young.
> Yep.  There's no mystery, no sense of "I'm doing something bad/wrong" or
> "I'm getting away with something I shouldn't be", and the mystique and/or
> novelty wears off as a result.
>
> It's the same reason many kids try cigarettes when they're in High School
> (or earlier) here in the US:  They're not allowed to.  So they rebel and
> do it behind the school while nobody's watching.   Oooooo, dangerous.
> You're SUCH a bad boy.

True :-)

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On 29/07/2010 12:08 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:11:06 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>>> >>     * "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.
> I agree that some do, and I mentioned a couple in another thread.
>

I was going to ask why. Why not make all drugs legal and let the sad 
ones “stone” themselves out of the reproductive cycle. But then I 
thought of penicillin and the like. We don’t want to allow people to 
take that when they feel like it.

BTW Just a minute starts on Monday


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:51:59 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 29/07/2010 12:08 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:11:06 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>>> >>     * "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.
>> I agree that some do, and I mentioned a couple in another thread.
>>
>>
> I was going to ask why. Why not make all drugs legal and let the sad
> ones “stone” themselves out of the reproductive cycle. But then I
> thought of penicillin and the like. We don’t want to allow people to
> take that when they feel like it.

Yep.  Making them legal doesn't mean make then uncontrolled.  Today if I 
want to buy cough syrup with codeine in it, I have to provide information 
to the pharmacy (even for stuff that used to be over the counter) because 
large quantities of codeine can be used to make crystal meth.

That's a perfectly reasonable control.

> BTW Just a minute starts on Monday

:-)

Jim

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On 7/28/2010 4:08 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> 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.
>
> PMFA, but where did you get your medical degree from?  If you're going to
> make assertions like that, I'd like to see them backed up by some sort of
> credentials that show you have some expertise in the field.  (And before
> you ask, no, I don't have such expertise).  Or a cite from a reputable
> source would suffice as well.
>
You don't need a medical degree to read articles on the effects of these 
things, and no, I don't have, or remember, the specific magazines, or 
which issues.

>> 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.
>
> "Frakking".  Derived from "Frak".  We've been over that before.<scnr>
>
> Seriously, though, I would tend to agree up to the "put the religion
> pushers in jail" bit.
>
I use it as an example, since the number of high profile wackos pushing 
cures for everything from drugs to homosexuality, none of which actually 
really work, who use religion as the "corner stone" of their supposed 
cure is pretty high. It could just as easily be people pushing 
acupuncture cures, or fake medicines, or Reiki treatment, or gluing 
magnets to your body, or what ever. The difference is, most of those 
later ones do not a) have national TV ads pushing their, "Don't listen 
to the medical people, they don't know nothing, buy my book!", while 
ignoring the dismal 95% failure rate they get (same as the number that 
fail to quit without buying their stupid book), or, worse, actually 
convincing entire groups of people to reject medicine entirely, like the 
ones in Oregon. I think they are now up to something like 15 dead kids, 
with one just recently reported in the news as having somehow actually 
ended up in state custody, unlike all the others, which where dead 
before the state had any chance to intervene... These people don't just 
have a quirky idea about how the world works, they are a danger to 
others, including anyone who might, say, end up in an accident some 
place, and only have a bunch of these morons there to "pray over them", 
in instead of calling an ambulance. Frankly, even most of the other con 
artists, and altie-med types are not *that* disconnected from reality. 
But, they still lie about their products, and only get by with it by 
calling it either "suppliments", thus bypassing the FDA, or "religion", 
thus placing it in a privileged category, which no one is allowed to 
challenge. Imho, they are all criminals, or mad, which means they should 
be jailed, or given mental health treatment, not patted on the hand and 
told, "Don't listen to the mean old person that doesn't believe you." 
Anyone in the "real" world tried to sell the stuff they do, or push the 
"cures" they do, without mislabeling it, to keep it out of the feds 
hands, or claiming that the great and mighty Thor bless it first, they 
would be seeing jail time.

>>>    * 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**.
>
> Depends on the drug.
>
I did say most. And, as I pointed out, it also depends on the person's 
own biology. Some people seem to be damn near completely immune to 
addiction. Others.. would be addicted by something as mild as caffeine.

>> 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**.
>
> And you arrest the guy breaking into someone's house to steal their TV
> for burglary/larceny.  Lock 'em up, put 'em in jail.  They've done
> something that actually affects someone else.  Same for the guy tweaking
> out who assaults someone.  The guy sitting in his home stoned off his ass
> on LSD, mushrooms, or pot isn't.  Hell, even the guy doing crack who
> isn't out committing crimes against other people isn't harming anyone but
> himself - until he needs to get his fix and he can't afford it so he
> steals a car.  Then you book him on grand theft auto.  Simple.
>
Sound all well and good, but you are presuming that the criminal system 
always catches these people, and no one that is sitting at home doing 
that didn't do anything wrong to get their hit. This is almost like the 
goofy libertarian idea of the "invisible hand" you always get, which 
goes like, "Its wrong to have laws, regulations, and standards in place 
to **tell you** a company what it can and can't do, without proof it has 
or will do any of those things, but you damn well better step in and 
stop it **if** they do, even though by getting rid of all those other 
things, we just stripped the government of any right or ability to stop 
them, when a company does do something wrong." It can't work that way. 
You look at the statistical reality of the situation and conclude that 
those seeking something have a high odds of being the ones to take 
criminal action, and, if it constitutes something that could endanger 
others as well (unless you suggest locking their doors, from the 
outside, so they don't get the idea to stop tweaking in their house, and 
wander into the street, or try to drive, stoned, to the mall), you need 
to prevent the conditions that lead to the dangers, not just wait until 
they actually *do* injure someone, or steal property.

Any other way of looking at it only appears *sane* if you assume neither 
you, nor anyone you know, will *ever* be the victim. Which one could 
argue is either arrogant, or stupid.

> Jim


-- 
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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On 7/28/2010 3:53 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:21:43 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Problem, as I maybe muddled a bit in the other post where I said this,
>> is there are drugs, and then there are drugs.
>
> Sure, I don't know that I would be for legalization of heroin or crack
> cocaine.
>
>> You get mild ones, like pot, you get the harder ones, which you keep
>> needing to take more and more of, but which are fairly tame, then you
>> get into the stuff where the things you describe above are the "norm",
>> for when the hit starts to wear off.
>
> I don't know though that I buy the argument about "gateway drugs".  From
> my perspective, it's about personal responsibility and self-control.
>
Gateway drugs are bullshit. That "hypothesis" was that you take X and 
end up taking Y to get higher later. Its pure nonsense. What I am 
talking about is taking less than half an ounce, and, depending on your 
personal biology, having to have a full ounce **of the same thing**, a 
few years later, or having to take it several times a day, or "both". I 
am talking about people taking stuff where the withdrawal can kill you, 
without proper controls, and not being on it makes you more dangerous 
than being stoned, but you are useless in "either" condition.

>> Those later ones are not going to
>> be "better" if you make any of it legal, or give out prescriptions, or
>> build something like the old opium dens, to do it "safely", etc. About
>> 10% of the population have odd quirks in their biology that make them
>> able to take "most" of this stuff, and walk away without needing it
>> again. On the other end is the 10% that will drop dead, the first time
>> they take something, the rest are like someone who intentionally jammed
>> their foot in a wood chipper, because someone said it would be fun, and
>> societies reaction, as a whole, to those people ranges from, "Pray and
>> it will grow back, but don't go to them damn doctors.", to, "Why should
>> the state use my money to give you an artificial foot, or therapy, its
>> your own damn fault!" Problem with this idiot way of looking at the
>> problem is, of course, if there where thousands of people missing feet,
>> all over the place, it *might* just have an impact of everyone else's
>> well being and safety, thus making both the "do nothing, its all in your
>> mind" people, and the, "I won't pay for it!", people, all complete
>> idiots. But, then.. I suppose you could just fix the problem by throwing
>> everyone that is missing a foot in jail. It would be so much easier,
>> even if it costs 500 times as much.
>
> Or you could hold people accountable for their personal decisions.  They
> stick their foot in the woodchipper, fine, but that injury isn't covered
> by insurance because it's self-inflicted (for example).  Action and
> consequence.
>
> And yes, that would have an impact on their immediate family.  Again,
> that's a consequence of their action.  My family member who went to
> prison for his DUI offense had consequences for his actions as well, and
> they affected more than him.  That's life, and he's accepted those
> consequences.
>
> It bothers me greatly that people think there should be no consequences
> for what they do.
>
The problem here is, making them take responsibility doesn't solve the 
damn problem. They did it. Now they are stuck with the problem, and no, 
the consequences *may* extend beyond their immediate family. Lets say it 
was loss of hearing, or blindness, or some other thing. Its not about if 
there are consequences. Most people have no damn clue how *big* the 
consequences can be, figure that most of what people are telling them 
are lies, since they can't imagine it being as bad as described, they 
may have the perception that others are doing it, so they should, and a 
whole host of other things. Even the ones that try to get off it, 
because they realize they made a mistake, are stuck in a situation where 
they are **permanently** wanting to stick their foot in the wood chipper 
again. Their brain chemistry has changed, and they can't **stop** 
wanting to *ever*. I would say that *that* is a pretty damn big 
consequence, in and of itself, without all the other garbage people drop 
in their laps, including the, often, complete destruction of their 
lives, which just make it all that more tempting to give in to the need 
they can't ever get rid of.

It is, on some level, right up there with cutting someone's hand off, as 
punishment for stealing a single fig from someone's fruit cart. People 
are not willing to stop at punishing them for what they *did* do, or 
recognizing that the consequences are *already* more than they can 
imagine, they feel they have to keep punishing these people, even to the 
point of refusing to help keep them from falling back into using, based 
on one, single, initial mistake. And that is just idiocy.

Fixing the problem isn't going to come from telling someone that has 
*lost* most of their ability to avoid being tempted, but is rather 
permanently feeling tempted now, that they need to show "more self 
control". Most of us normal, non-drug using, people have no damn clue 
what that word actually means. We just assume its like waking up and 
picking between whether to wear underwear or not, before going to work, 
and we imagine the consequence to be not much worse than having to not 
make the *wrong* mistake again, having opted for not wearing any, then 
splitting our pants, or some similar "choice".

The whole point of the "lost a foot" analogy is to point out that, once 
the choice is made, it doesn't matter what help you give them, or how 
often, etc., they live with the consequences, every single day of their 
lives, forever, short of finding a way to cure the actual chemical 
dependence, which never goes away. You can either treat them like 
someone worth help, or you can treat them like shit. Which solution do 
you imagine will help them avoid losing control again?

-- 
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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