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Drugs, Pg2 update on California's Proposition 19

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TWT
Post subject: Drugs, Pg2 update on California's Proposition 19
Posted: Thu 02 Sep , 2010 11:46 pm
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Plain and simple, non prescription, illegal drugs.

The perception of banned substances has changed many times over the last 50 years. The social perception of drugs varies by place and decade and we are at the most educated point we've ever been at in our history.

I'm interested in what your thoughts are on drugs. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, I think just a spectrum of opinions. What's your stance on certain substance's legallity, rights to one's own body, etc. Are they (some or all) as terrible as the media makes out. Perhaps you've had great or terrible experiences with drugs.

The reason I ask here is obvious, people who post here are conscious of the world and not usually imprisoned by the opinions that are almost made up and handed to us by media, governments or tradition.

So post away. And thanks for hopefully being open. :)

Last edited by TWT on Thu 14 Oct , 2010 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 1:29 am
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I'm pretty simple on the subject. Full legalization.

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Holbytla
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 1:36 am
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Generally something you grow out of unless they kill you first.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 2:23 am
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My current stance: if it's physically addictive and can be OD'd on (eg. cocaine, heroin, ect), then it shouldn't be legal to produce (based upon the idea that addictive products can, in a sense, rob you of your liberty). Otherwise, legalize it and leave people alone.


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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 1:45 pm
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I personally don't like any kind of drugs, not even OTC ones. I don't trust them and I rarely get the expected benefits and usually get really rare, freaky side effects.

I try to stay away from all drugs of any kind. My body has millions of years of evolutionary experience on running its own biochemistry. I think it's stupid to tinker with that.

Y'all can do what you want. I'm not messing with anything stronger than sugar. (sucrose/table sugar).

Okay.... I sometimes give in and take acetaminaphen if I have a really bad migraine- but that's just masking the symptoms, not curing the problem. I recently found out that the occasional migraines I get are due to electrolyte loss! I get better a whole lot faster if I just take some mineral pills.

I always prefer to go the cause of a problem and work on that rather than mask the symptoms. Sometimes the root cause is hidden under layers and layers of conflicting data, but if you dig at it long enough you'll get to the bottom if you are lucky.

If you can't find the cause and are hurting too much to bear, I can sympathize with symptom masking, but I really don't like to do it myself. I think of every symptom I have as being a message from my body, and if I ignore that message, I'm ignoring important info from the part of me that knows the most about the situation. Like the migraine. My body needed electrolytes and was trying to tell me. :shrug: It took me years to figure that out, but now I know.

As far as mind-altering drugs go, I don't see the point. I've never tried anything illegal, and never will. I don't like what alcohol does to me or caffeine so I don't use them either. If other people want to do that kind of thing I don't really care, though, as long as they cause no harm to others.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 1:47 pm
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Never used them, never plan to. But I believe criminalizing them creates more problems than it solves.

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vison
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 2:16 pm
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I agree with C_G, but I daresay our methods might differ.

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TWT
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 5:29 pm
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Intersteing. And I find it interesting because I consider posters here to be educated and people understanding of society etc. so your opionion carries more weight than say a simple internet or public poll.

I've used drugs numerous times since I was young(er). (I'm 23 ftr.) Never was addicted to anything nor experienced any bad side effects. Usually waking up the next morning after having done something the night before is eighty times more pleasant than waking up after having drank too much (something I rarely if at all do anymore).

Its still funny and frustrating to see how even marijuana is still banned when alcohol is considered to be a worse drug with worse side effects. Recent studies show weed to stop and even prevent many cancers while the user has no more risk of developing lung cancer from smoking pot than a regular non-smoker. So while a beer a day or a glass of wine a day have health benefits, an illegal and highly beneficial drug is banned and ignored. Doctors will prescribe way more crap perhaps finding nothing that works when there's a perfectly natural medium to at least try.

The other reason I'm personally for legalizing at least a couple of our banned substances is because of the social benefits. In 2007 (the last report I read) my country Canada led the world in "illegal" marijuana usage, per capita. 16.8 percent of Canadians toked that year, and I'm sure its gone up because everywhere here, expecially in B.C. down Vison's area, police are extremely lenient. Just don't flaunt it and they usually won't even bother you about it. So even if 15% of the population smoked, vaporized or took weed in any form on some form of a regular basis, that's a massive amout of tax money we're missing out on, and a lot of tax money being spent on anti-drug endevours.

And that's just one drug. I know pleanty of people who drink opium tea, do magic mushrooms, LSD, etc. The latter isn't so popular anymore, not like it was in the '60s and '70s but as far as my research and understanding go its harmless to the body and virtually impossible to get addicted to. Its nothing but a mind trip. Why these things shouldn't be legal, overseen by a responsible body and sold with care is beyond me. Its not hard to get any of those things. Anytime I've ever wanted anything I've usually gotten ahold of it by the next day. But I'd rather buy it publicly and legally. Unfortunately the government stands in the way.

Education is also important. If these things were to be legal then perhaps there could be a drug education class in schools like there is for sex. I don't know what the legal age should be to buy drugs, but I'd probably go with the U.S. alcohol system of 21. There's a good site on the internet called thegooddrugsguide.com and its helpful because its aimed at helping people not simply get over drug addiction but more to educate people who are going to try things anyway, teaching them how to do it properly so as not to harm themselves. For example I never knew that coke and alcohol combine in the body to create a poison.

I still agree with Yova though. There should be a limit to anything. There are substances out there that are simply way too addictive. Heroin, meth, stuff that really does both affect you negatively and is addictive should not be available to anyone. But its also my thought that those drugs would become less popular with the introduction of drugs that are legal. Heck, while Canada has the world's highest marijuana usage percentage, it enjoys one of the world's lower heroin usage percentages.

There will always be ultimate thrill-seekers like River Phoenix and Belushi (his 1st name escapes me) who died doing speedballing (mixing cocaine and heroin in the same needle) but those are examples to be learned from. I suppose people who support the legalization of drugs could use the NRA thought: drugs don't kill people, people kill people. Responsable use doesn't lead to death or even poor health, not necessarily anyway. Something I think governments around the world should be looking at.


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Jude
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 6:25 pm
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TWT wrote:
In 2007 (the last report I read) my country Canada led the world in "illegal" marijuana usage, per capita. 16.8 percent of Canadians toked that year,
That sounds really high to me. Do you have a link to the study? Is it broken down by age group, by any chance?

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Fri 03 Sep , 2010 7:04 pm
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I just came across this on another site where they were talking about spiritual experiences:
Quote:
I think the most a peace with myself I've ever been was 20 years ago, when I would sit in the shade of a cannabis tree in the afternoon behind my barn after work, and smoke marijuana. Since then, the closest thing to a spiritual experience were the times, when I was serving a minimum ten year federal sentence for growing marijuana, and I would be laying in my bunk listening to Prarie Home Companion, or reading, or someone in the cell would say something that would strike me as so funny that I would laugh so hard, I would lose consciousness of anything else but me laughing.
:Q Ten years for growing marijuana?

Ten years??

Ten years???

Is there anyone who doesn't find that obscene?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 12:28 am
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That was going to be my point, Jude. I do not support the legalization of drugs, but I do support a revamping of the current punishment system. I would consider the legalization of marijuana, as I think it falls into roughly the same category as alcohol. (Although, the cycle of drug abuse often begins with alcohol, escalates to marijuana, and then onto the more addictive drugs. I know this firsthand. And I was careful to say that this cycle "often" begins this way not "always".)

I've seen what heroin, meth, cocaine, etc. can do to people. It's tragic and deplorable. I don't want my fellow human beings to suffer that way. I don't want their kids to suffer or their loved ones. And I don't want to suffer as a society, with increased theft, sex crimes, and violent crimes.

However, the realist side of me believes that society will always have its problems like this, whether from alcohol abuse, drug abuse, or whatever. (There is a spiritual aspect to this, imo, but that may be going off on a tangent.) Legalize drugs? It's not going to be better. Keep them illegal? It's not going to get better--probably. Take a fresh approach in stopping the production of drugs (by addressing poverty issues in the countries where they are produced, for example), better drug rehab programs, better community services to help people break that cycle of self-destruction, etc.? I think that has a chance of improving the situation, though not in eliminating it entirely.

My two cents.

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vison
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 12:43 am
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The Netherlands and Portugal are good examples of how "legalizing" drugs - even "hard" drugs - has lessened drug use and lowered the crime rate.

Heroin, in fact, can be used all life long if a person has access to good heroin. It is not a mind-wrecker like meth. I'm not advocating it, mind you. Just remember that many doctors and nurses are addicted to morphine and other proscribed drugs. Heroin was developed as a safe substitute for morphine but it has had a lot of bad press.

There are always going to be those persons who will overuse alcohol or other drugs. Most people don't. I don't. I smoked pot a couple of times years ago and I now drink moderately, as in most days I have maybe one drink or no drinks.

I have never heard of it being common for someone to "move from alcohol to marijuana". Lots of kids smoke dope long, long, long before they ever try booze.

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 1:19 am
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Using drugs, any drugs, recreationally is not, IMO, a good idea. Not for any moral or legal reason, but just because your biochemistry dances on the edge of a knife even when you're, by all measures, healthy. Stray but a little and...you know the rest. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Marijuana ought to be treated like tobacco. Time was it was, in fact, and people who couldn't afford tobacco smoked reefer. I'm not sure why it was ever banned. Probably because of the tobacco lobby. :P

As for the harder, addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin and meth...well, those used to be legal. They were banned because they were dangerous and I've seen what they do. Granted, as an EMT you only see what happens when things aren't going fine (that's how it is when you're on the responding end of 911 calls) but those drugs take an otherwise healthy person and just mess them up completely. On the other hand, once something is legal, the quality of the merchandise can be better monitored and some of the other crap associated with the drug trade can be reined in as well. But if heroin, cocaine, meth and the like were to be re-legalized, it might be better to make them prescription only, if only to give the use some extra oversight.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 2:11 am
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I'd legalize pot...the rest no I don't think so, but I would also revamp the legal system....I see no point in having a pot smoking pot growing person in the same jail cell as a murderer. Of course I think at times if we legalize all of them then we can regulate them and all those drug lords become tax paying business men. I am sure we could pay off our national debt with just pot be legalized and taxed.

And IMHO I think alcohol is just as if not more dangerous than pot.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 2:35 am
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Theft is about the only one of those crimes that I could see decreasing significantly if drug use were made legal. Even then, though, are we going to distribute drugs for free? If not, people will still have to have money to buy their drugs.

I agree with you, Ara-anna; alcohol is at least as dangerous as pot, probably more so because more people use it. The negative effects of alcohol or drug abuse do not all stem from people trying to acquire their substance of choice. Many of them are related to the actions of people either drunk or stoned. (I'm thinking of incidents where the police or the EMTs have to get involved.)

vison, I'll just have to disagree with you. Nearly everyone I know began by drinking alcohol. (I'm particularly thinking of high school where the majority of people began drinking. Smoking pot was something "stoners" did. But drinking alcohol cut across the different cliques.) Some progressed to pot after that. Some went on from there. (But certainly not all, not even the majority, probably.) That's just my personal experience, so take it fwiw. Perhaps society has changed? Though, if I weren't feeling so lazy right now, I'd dig up the stats from my education textbook. It had some interesting ones regarding students' use of alcohol and drugs. I'll try to do it this weekend some time.

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*E*V*E*N*S*T*A*R*
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 2:39 am
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I think I actually said something about this in Scarburbia, but my biggest problem with marijuana is the people who use it and brag about it. Hey congrats, you're breaking the law, what a bad-ass. A twelve-year-old with the munchies, ho ho am I scandalized!

I've felt the same towards drinking alcohol and smoking, so it mostly bothers me for a) being illegal, and b) having an affect on your personality (temporarily, though it seems like a lot of users become such fans they almost try to convert you - apparently weed is akin to religion or vegetarianism). :P The smell certainly does nothing for me. It sounds harmless enough, so I wouldn't object to trying it out in a legal setting. Until then, I am fine with my prescription anti-depressants, specifically because they didn't change anything I needed. It was definitely an initial fear, though.

Zero experiences with the stuff besides a high school friend being surprised I didn't smoke to get inspiration for my writing, as that's where hers came from. Not the kind of motivation I need, sorry. :scared: And my uncle got into it once he formed a band lol. :roll: This tends to make me associate marijuana with an image people want to uphold, whether to their friends or ~society~ in general. Which has bupkis to do with the government, so I'll leave the educational studies and surveys to those who care!



Btw, it's John Belushi. Dang, son. :P

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TWT
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 3:47 am
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Heh, I wasn't sure if it was John or Jim, either way, both their careers died a long time ago...

:Wooper:

A couple people's replies surprised me a bit. Lali, I expected you to be more against it but I'm glad to see that even though you have a personal view you also have a broader less biased view. I usually try to do the same.

And Jude, here's the link to the article and yes it did provide an age demographic it was ages 15-64: http://mostlywater.org/canada_leads_wor ... ijuana_use

I really think that sometimes its really hard to speak on certain subjects when people haven't tried certain things. I'm certainly not minimalizing anyone who's expressed an opinion and hasn't tried drugs, I really wanted everyone's view. But like Vison said about heroin, so other drugs have really been slandered (I guess is the word). Coke for example, is, and pardon my French, fucking terrible in when its crack cocaine. The shit is bad for you, messes you up and is extremely addictive. But that's the poor man's cheap coke high. Cocaine in its pure white form is usually a bit of a status symbol here in North America. Blow, aka snorted coke, isn't really bad for you unless you take massive amounts and often. The recreational user is at little to no risk.

If fact in 1995 the World Health Organization did a huge report investigating cocaine and the results were less negative than anything and the study was basically banned. The U.S. embassador said that the U.S. would pull funding for all further WHO drug projects unless it surpressed the results of the study. Some of the study has been leaked in recent years though.

Here's a brief summary:
Quote:
In March 1995 WHO/UNICRI released a briefing kit summarising the key conclusions, as a curtain raiser to the report's imminent publication.


"Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use.
Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users." (pg. 1)
So I'm sure that many smarter minds than my own should determine the continued legallity or illegallity of these substances but at the same time, they really need to open their minds to all the facts, not the biases and extreme cases. I remember another study (which I can't find now, if anyone wants it I'll look harder) which showed a statistic that those who used cocaine recreationally tend to have better mental health than the average person (and I believe mental health referred to depression proneness, personality disorders etc.)

Another note to Lali, I read yet another report (its starting to look like I spend my life reading reports), that talked about crime in relation to drugs and they said that because at the moment drugs are illegal, they're not able to determine what effect drugs have on crimes of theft in particular. As most people, even non users know, drugs tend to calm you down or wake you up, make you more perceptive etc. and doesn't usually lead to irrational behavior as on alcohol. Aka, people are much less likely to get angry on drugs than alcohol. So I don't know, you could be entirely right, or not. :P I can't say which, but like Vison said about other countries which at least decriminalize certain drugs, it does tend to lead to lower crime rates. Trust me, not that I really want my (future) kids to partake of anything, I'd much rather see them smoke pot than drinking. That's purely personal though. :)

*E*, I'm also on board with what you said about bragging about it. I just don't like those kind of people in general. Heck, I've used some drugs since I was 16 or 17 yet I've never really said anything about it to people here until now. I epecially can't stand people who talk about being drunk. Seriously? What's cool about that? Any single person above the age of 19 (here anyway) can do that, you're not special! :P

Vison, the mere mention of meth usually gives me the creeps. Its my hope that if they at least legalized one or two drugs that it would lead to the lessening of bad drug, like meth, production.

If they ever did legalize it, I would be for the government regulating it, not it being something that your local convenience store would sell. That way if someone comes in to buy there are trained people there to say no and recognize symptoms to turn people away.

Something else funny, I saw Cheech, as in from Cheech and Chong, mop the floor with Anderson Cooper and Aisha Tyler last night on Celebrity Jeopardy. L.O.L. :blackeye: Not all potheads are stupid.


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 5:13 am
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
Theft is about the only one of those crimes that I could see decreasing significantly if drug use were made legal.
Weeell...forgive me the somewhat silly point but....if drug possession was legal, then drug possession crimes would drop, um, pretty significantly. :P Which means less crowded jails amongst other potential benefits. I definitely don't think possession of any substance should be a crime. I can't see what possible benefit there is to society to jailing someone with a coke habit or whatever.


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TWT
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 6:11 am
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I presume it works similarily elsewhere, but around here they tend to give more lenient sentances or let off the hook those who the court sees as adicts. I partially understand that, but its also dangerous to have different standards for different people. That, is the proverbial slippery slope.


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TWT
Post subject: Re: Drugs
Posted: Sat 04 Sep , 2010 6:16 am
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Well that hasn't happened to me in a long time...

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