It's official - California's gone to pot.

The problem with Utopias is they tend to be made from other people's hells

Reply to
bitrex
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Clearly you don't know much about drugs and their uses (legal or otherwise). It is not just a matter of all illegal drugs are for getting "high".

Heroin and cannabis (in various forms) both have serious, significant medical uses. And both are used for "self medication". The same applies to many other narcotics, including LSD, cocaine and amphetamines

- though the medical uses may be minimal. (For example, LSD has been used helpfully in treatment of some psychiatric disorders - but has significant side effects.)

Heroin is an excellent pain killer, and is one of the better opiates for serious injury or surgical pain involved in back and neck injuries and operations. For people in pain - physical or psychological - illegal heroin can be a way to escape it for a while.

Cannabis is a relaxant, and helps against stress, muscle pain, and nausea. It is one of the most useful drugs for cancer and other degenerative and wasting diseases, as it reduces pain, relieves anxiety, dampens the side-effects of many cancer treatments (especially the nausea from chemotherapy) and improves appetite (again, especially useful with chemotherapy). And again, it is something people use themselves to feel better, even when their symptoms are not strong enough to warrant medical treatment.

Sure, for many people drugs are just about "getting high" - just as for many people, alcohol is about getting drunk (which is, after all, nothing more than a "high" in the same sense). But other people are more nuanced in their use of drugs (including alcohol).

There are some drugs (including your example, crystal meth) where a euphoric high is the only positive effect, where there are lots of side-effects and serious risks, high addiction rates - these are always a problem. The path between starting these and becoming a wreck of a person is very, very short.

But neither heroin, cannabis, or cocaine are in that class. Most cannabis and cocaine users are fully functioning members of society, just as most alcohol users are. (Heroin is more difficult - it is more addictive, especially if injected rather than smoked. Its use has to be carefully controlled in dosage and time to be safe.) These drugs are certainly not risk-free, and can cause temporary or permanent psychological damage (occasionally even with very light usage, depending on the person) and like any other mind-altering drug there is the risk of doing something stupid while under the influence. But they are not fundamentally different from alcohol in that respect. Most of the health problems come from unreliable and unregulated supplies, such as poor control of the strength, "cutting" the drug with flour or other white dust, sharing needles, etc. Most of the social problems come from the legal status of the drugs rather than the drugs themselves.

Reply to
David Brown

Young people are already using marijuana, the government has been spending millions, maybe billions over many, many years to stop it and have failed. Government is making criminals out of normal citizens. The money should be saved in the enforcement area and applied to help those that do have trouble with marijuana. Stop putting people in jail for marijuana use, or sale of small amounts. Regulate and tax it.

Cigarettes, alcohol, video games, Facebook, internet, television, advertising, that list is long. Should we be putting them in jail and ruining the lives of many.

Mikek

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Reply to
amdx

It is common in many countries to treat small "personal use" doses of cannabis lightly, even when the drug is classified as illegal. That can mean confiscation, small fines, and perhaps a record (so that repeat offences are taken more seriously). It is also common for police to use their judgement - will the person take such a warning seriously without needing the drastic step of arrest, criminal record, etc.? Finally, it is also common for police to be lazy about minor offences - they may think it is simply not worth the effort in time and paperwork to deal with such small offences when they have more important things to do (catching bank robbers, eating doughnuts, etc.).

Reply to
David Brown

I'm not so sure, I can have one or two drinks in the evening it mellows me, eases my back pain, I get to sleep in less time. Where is the line of high and not high.

Are we going to legalize those? Or just

Reply to
amdx

Apples-to-oranges comparisons. Alcohol (and other depressants such as benzodiazepines and "'ludes", opioids, nicotine, amphetamines, etc. cause physiological addiction and profound behavioral changes in a way that video games and television do not.

I feel confident in saying that very few people have died or ended up in an ICU/detox unit as a direct consequence of having their television taken away. I feel confident in saying very few people have ripped copper wiring out of unfinished homes or stolen wrought-iron garden furniture (as happened in my neighborhood a few weeks ago) to sell for scrap to pay for a new video game.

Reply to
bitrex

"I smoked, but I didn't inhale"

Reply to
bitrex

Illegal drugs should be confiscated from end-users. The big makers and distributors should be arrested and prosecuted. Street drugs now kill more people in the US than car accidents. Lives matter.

If marijuana has legitimate medical uses, the FDA should license it and pharmacies should sell it.

Smoking anything is harmful. Weed has bad effects on the brains of juveniles.

The government made a deal with the tobacco companies: pay us a lot of taxes, and you can keep killing people. Everybody is happy except the people dying from cancer and emphysema.

We should have public policies that minimize harm... not profit from it.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

Most of the (now super-potent) California weed is exported to other states. Legalization allows the state to tax it. Like cigarettes, all that really matters is the money.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

No. "Old-fashioned concepts of public health" is code for public policy that on average improves public health.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

And it's 10x as potent as it was 30 years ago.

Math and heroin and fentanyl are not improving the lives of the poor and minorities. Hyper-potent weed is not improving educational outcomes.

Sex, drugs, rock-and-roll. STDs, AIDS, orphans.

Street drugs keep many of them poor. Or kills them.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

from the CDC:

An estimated 88,000 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity. In 2014, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 9,967 deaths (31 percent of overall driving fatalities).

....

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

"Made a deal" makes it sound like there's some equitable relationship here. Some would say the government is functioning as employees

Reply to
bitrex

That is to say, employees take orders, they don't make deals.

Reply to
bitrex

Driving stoned won't help.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
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Reply to
John Larkin

The punishment for narcotics trafficking in Singapore is death, and AFAIK that punishment is enforced more-or-less universally. Young, old, rich, poor, Asian, white, whatever, do the crime and you get the sentence.

It certainly is "old fashioned", but on the other hand it is certainly true opioid addiction rates in Singapore are astonishingly low.

Reply to
bitrex

Weed smokers are probably less likely to get in a car to begin with; it has significantly less CNS depressant effects and doesn't cause extreme loss of inhibition the way alcohol does. Like the guy I saw a few months ago driving around with no headlights on, turn into a liquor store parking lot and promptly crash into a bunch of parked cars.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time"

Reply to
bitrex

so is the number of gays in Iran ...

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

It doesn't cost anything or require any materials to be attracted to men, but it's hard to be addicted to something that isn't readily available to most of the population.

Reply to
bitrex

You and Clinton (either) are a perfect pair.

Reply to
krw

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