Prohibition... Good or Bad?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Diode-Man, Dec 5, 2011.

?

Is prohibition healthy?

  1. Prohibition is AWESOME

    11.1%
  2. Prohibition is DAMNABLE

    88.9%
  1. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    When alcohol was prohibited by the US government it turned alcohol into a black market product which fueled the cash supplies of cartels.

    When Richard Nixon created the "War on Drugs" he began something which would funnel billions of dollars to cartels (giving them the monopoly on black market drugs)and turn non-violent people into eligible candidates for prison time.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2011
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Latest poll I saw showed 41% want to legalize it, 50% want to keep it illegal. How is "listening to the will of the people" corruption?

    I know a lot of people who do drugs. None of them are rich and powerful.
     
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  5. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    Good points...
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The people are subject to a lot of disinformation and propaganda on the subject.
     
  8. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    I was out of the US at the outset of heavy enforcement against prohibited drugs. When I returned, I did not notice at first that the laws and enforcements had changed. What came as a shock to me was that the nightly news was carrying stories of shootings between rival dope peddlers. I had never before heard of such a thing (in the then modern times).

    When in a situation that is unfolding, you tend not to notice the quantum boundaries that get crossed as change escalates continuously. Step aside and take infrequent notice, and those boundaries become more clear.

    For me, it was a revelation. Regardless of all the negative potentials of substance abuse, the intervention by prohibition has aggravated the situation, not helped, and certainly not cured it. Two million people are locked up in the US, and the lion's share are either on drug charges or something they got into on account of drugs.

    Alcohol prohibition did not work. Alcoholism is here to stay. The problem with any government interference at this level, the personal level, is that the laws come and go as the moods of society swing. More people talk about drug violence than addiction, because the violence has shocked the public conscience more than addiction. But policy appears to be the aggravating cause.

    So a person may go to prison for most of a lifetime only to emerge in a society that doesn't care any more about the nature of the charge.

    Down with prohibition.
     
  9. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    3,256
    Prohibition is the US governments attempt to repeal the law of supply and demand. It has not worked as intended, it is not working now and it will continue to not work in the future. It is a total and complete waste of limited precious resources that would better be invested elsewhere.

    But then, most of us here already knew that stuff.

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  10. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Once more, I link this Time article:
    Portugal decriminalized (not totally legalized) drugs and mainly treats drug use as a medical problem...which is what addiction really is.
    Their results? Use down, treatment way up.
    http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

    We've been trying to stop the sale of pot for 80 years (Before that it was sold in farmer's markets and used as a home remedy).
    Now what used to be a domestic farm product is marketed by the Zeta cartel. This is good?

    Honestly, I'm torn about legalizing hard drugs.
    The cons-greater availability.
    The pros-drugs that are of a known purity, known concentration, taxed, not a producer of gang violence....and legalizing needles would keep those junkies who choose to shoot up from passing HIV and hepatitis through sharing needles. You can quit drugs, but HIV/hepatitis is forever.

    I've thought that using the funds from sales taxes on drugs to fund rehabs would be a good idea.

    The Netherlands and the Swiss have actually decided to simply allow "maintenance heroin" programs for those who cannot quit or achieve stability on methadone programs:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction#Heroin_maintenance_programs

    My perspective tends to be one of harm reduction: http://www.harmreduction.org/section.php?id=62
    People seem determined to use drugs, whether I like it or not. Too, I think a person ought to have sovereignty over their own body...and what they put in it ought not to be our business-until they endanger another person. Say, operating machinery of any sort while high...or not making sure someone else is competently babysitting their toddler while they are drunk as stoats.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2011
  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    I couldn't answer the poll because of wording. Can't go with "damnable", though i certainly think it's ineffectual and misguided at best; at worst, self-serving, possibly to a criminal degree; in either case, disingenuous.

    It's a money-sink in so many ways, with so many drains, that it would be very difficult to stop. The beneficiaries have a lot more political clout than the victims. There is plenty of evidence to show that almost any alternative approach solve the problem of drug dependency far better than "war". (Well, i mean, seriously? War on drugs?) It's just a question of why it's being carried on, for whose profit, and what it would take to neutralize those interests.
     
  12. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    118
    Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. Prohibition brought the precious gift of life to so many in the 1930's due to the intensified interest it brought to ethyl alcohol. A toast to motherhood!

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  13. Elbow2daFace Registered Member

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    8
    If we are just talking about weed how it's be prohibited, then it's very bad in my opinion. It should be legal, and there are so many benefits from weed that a country would greatly like also the people too.
     
  14. convivial Registered Senior Member

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    107
    A lot more people support marijuana legalization now than a couple decades ago. I'd say it's pretty likely that it becomes legal in much, if not most of the U.S. this century. About the idea of legalizing all drugs, let's start with the marijuana and go from there.
     
  15. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Congress passed the Volstead Act, the popular name for the National Prohibition Act, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto on October 28, 1919, and established the legal definition of intoxicating liquor, alcoholic beverages having an alcohol content of greater than 2.75%, as well as penalties for producing it. Though the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, the federal government did little to enforce it. By 1925, in New York City alone, there were anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasy clubs.

    WIKI

    While I understand that there are many people who drink responsively there are also many others that don't and become alcoholics which destroy the very fabric of their lives. Irresponsible drinking also leads to the destruction of families which cause domestic violence and even murders . These people also affect others by drinking and driving causing thousands of deaths and injuries every year. So while the majority of people do drink responsibly I'd think that the others that don't are the real problem but we cannot separate one from the other without hurting them both by disallowing drinking.


    Drugs were already illegal before Nixon made harsher penalties against them so "cartels" were already making huge profits decades before he did that. Cartels had the black market already in their back pockets many years before Nixon became POTUS so you really can't blame him for the problems of illegal drugs being sold but did cause the prices to escalate.
     
  16. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    It's been decriminalized down to a small fine in many states as of today with many other states also following suit. I think that's the best thing to do because like cigarettes, marijuana can cause medical problems to people which someday will be brought to court and fines imposed if it becomes legal to sell. Those selling it could then face fines into the billions just like the cigarette manufacturers have in the past.
     
  17. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    The main problem with prohibitions is it tries to create a one size fits all solution, in a world where there are many sizes. Although this one size will fit perfectly for some, the same one size will also be too tight for some and too loose for others.

    Those who are outside the range of optimization will be less comfortable and will seek ways to adjust the size outside the confines of the law. Some will be tempted to expand the size (temptation), while other will try to narrow the size (self righteous).

    We can run a prohibition simulation with shoes. For now on, only size 11 male shoes will be sold. All other sizes will be prohibited because this works for me. This one size should fit all, just like any other prohibition, if I use the same lack of common sense. If you are size 11 there is no skin off your teeth. This is not much of a sacrifice and you can conform with minimal impact. But if you take size 7 or 13 this will cause problems. The people with size 11 might not fully understand why these people complain, since this one size fits them so well.

    If the shoes size of the prohibiton are too tight, especially several sizes too tight, this can lead to foot injury. Natural instinct will want to take the shoes off, at least periodically. In the world of prohibition fashion this can be a fashion taboo.

    If your shoe are too loose, this can be adjusted with padding or extra socks to inflate the size of your feet. This is usually done with self righteousness to get that inflated sense of self (artificially bigger foot to fit the larger shoe size).

    Since this is all irrational, one way to deal with it is create prohibitions that will cause those who create a prohibition, to have the wrong size. They will get to walk a mile in the wrong shoes to learn some simple cause and effect when not optimized. This is not a mystery and has been around since the beginning of civilization. It is often used to create law enforcement and legal jobs as well as tax free black market monopolies, which create even more spin off jobs.

    How about a prohibition that does not allow elected official to lie. We can allow maybe 100 per month as the one size. This will be to tight for some and too loose for others. Then we can watch the dynamics unfold. We will predict what will happen to see that the catalyst for all the darkness will be the per on who creates such a law.
     
  18. Search & Destroy Take one bite at a time Moderator

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    1,467
    haha prohibition is damnable your survey proves it. 12 to 1
     
  19. convivial Registered Senior Member

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    107
    I believe insurance can cover that? I like the tax savings through lower law enforcement costs, and the new source of tax revenue. I read about Holland's experience in decriminalization of the drug some time back, and if I remember and understood it correctly, problems they had largely came from tourists. Citizen use I think barely went up. Not legalizing marijuana because of what tourists might do is like saying cars should be illegal because people who can't drive well will sometimes use them and cause destruction.
     
  20. steampunk Registered Senior Member

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    Those against prohibition may get there wish. With our diminishing oil supply and cosequentially an end to growth as we know it in the market because of that, America will continue to loose it's luxury to hold onto impractical policy. Legalize it all. Tax it for health insurance of users only. Treatment centers should be employment oriented.
     
  21. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    So you think that the medical problems should be just paid out to provide adequate money to help those who suffer but by just keeping it illegal you'd not have to pay anything. Insurances will rise in their costs to everyone when they have to payout billions for a legal lawsuit so you really want to be made to pay higher insurance costs down the road?
     
  22. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    In short : the greater the effect of the drug (in terms of health and effects on the person) the more it has to be regulated.

    Even though alcohol is legal there are many regulating details that make it illegal in terms of production and consumption.

    Same goes for smoking cigarettes.

    The regulation of caffeine seems to be limited to labeling.

    It gets more tricky when you look at how the dutch regulate cannabis use

    ( .... A November 2008 poll showed that a 60% majority of the Dutch population support the legalisation of soft drugs. The same poll showed that 85% supported closing of all cannabis coffee shops within 250 meters walking distance from schools.)


    In short, if prohibition simply drives the practice underground then it not only defeats the purpose but makes it unable to be regulated (or to be more precise, it is regulated by a more nefarious money-hungry body than what commonly heads up cigarette companies and the like).

    If the solution seems to be to grant it some sort of legal status, even that is confined by a framework of prohibition.

    I guess its a growing pain of industrial communities to have the means to mess up in a real spectacular fashion under the influence of drugs (eg automobiles) while simultaneously having it almost as a backbone of necessity in terms of (adult) culture - in that way its like any sort of drug culture in an industrial society is damnable

    :shrug:
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2011
  23. convivial Registered Senior Member

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    There should be an appreciable amount of oil through the entirety of our life times, both because of better drilling and efforts to reduce dependence on oil.

    I'm fine with high marijuana tax just for extra income, though the effect on the black market should be studied in relation to it.

    Or maybe there aren't mega-lawsuits and the opposite occurs. Even if insurance was higher, it must still be weighed against the financial benefits of taxing and decriminalization.
     

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