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A few points:

-Marijuana is a seperate issue, in my opinion. Zipperfish made some good points towards its legalization, but I don't see how they apply to harder substances.

-People get criminal records for a reason. It's because they've done something which they knew was deemed wrong. Why not decriminalize B&E, since doing so would help the person get back on their feet more easily? Nobody starts life with a criminal record, and nobody is forced to do drugs, and commit crime. The fact is, a lot of people in these situations have chosen their life; they don't want assistance, or a 'normal' life.

-I also fail to see how decriminalizing hard drugs will stop drug related crime. A poor junkie is still going to have to steal to buy legal heroin.

-It's not just people who are unfortunate, either. Janis Joplin or John Belushi could have told you how their lives had been improved by drug use, if it weren't for their drug related deaths. Drugs like heroin and cocaine are designed to be extremely addictive, and there's no such thing as casual use of them.

   

People die from using them. I notice you didn't comment on that.



Poverty is not an excuse for drug problems.



Lots of things "just are" and don't have the problems associated with them as with drugs like heroin and cocaine. Chewing cocoa leaves or poppy seeds in one thing; extracting the active chemicals in these plants and sticking them into your bloodstream is quite different.

   

People die from an extremely unhealthy diet. People die from cars. People die from alcohol. That argument does not carry a great deal of weight in the argument against drugs. sorry.



Excuse no, explanation yes. The truth is that people do rely on it as they come to rely on many things in life chemical or otherwise.

   

I should have clarified it by saying it kills people, while providing no real benefit to society. What does hard drug use accomplish? There's no social benefit. People use it as an excuse to run away from their problems, and they only make it worse. Eating, transportation, and alcohol (and marijuana) have positive aspects to their use which outweigh the negative.



Should we legalize domestic violence in order to remove the associated stigma and help families get the help they need? If the goal is to help these people get "unhooked", then why is legalization required?

   

The people who choose to use them feel otherwise and that is the main issue. If they choose to use it then that is their perogative. I know many who would vehemetly dispute the benefits of alcohol. If people choose that as their lifestyle then who are we to judge. If they cannot handle it and it encroaches on the the lives of others then its a different story. We can ensure that they have ready & easy access to help like we do with smoking & alcohol beyond the drug programs already available. How about gambling? For some it is an extremly destructive influence that can obviously destroy families yet for the vast majority it is entertainment. The same arguments against drugs can be made against gambling.


Your example involves infliciting harm on someone against their wiill which isn't the same as someone making a personal choice. I am well aware of the destructive power that drugs can have on family life but this is happening while its illegal as well. Legalizing it won't increase these problems or make them worse but could make them better. How about marital affairs? Its legal and it happens and when it does it can tear families apart. Should we criminalize that? Would it make a difference? The major factors are freedom of choice Vs Welfare of society. Now all drugs don't have to be made legal in their present form but reasonable decisions can be made as the stregth of the drug increases so should its legalility decrease.

   

I just don't see how hard drugs can be part of a healthy lifestyle. Anything can be done in excess and abused, but I don't see cocaine and heroin being anything but abused.

   

Not everybody abuses them. Now they may not be part of a healthy lifestyle I feel there are more considerations in whether its legal or not though. Its not an easy choice for society though as we've also had to wrestle with the legality\illegality of other vices.

   

One of the more difficult issues of living in a modern liberal (the ideology, not the party) democracy is that one must allow some to make poor choices despite the notion that they may run counter to their own social/political/cultural/religious leanings.

No one can seriously condone drug use as purely advantageous to the user or society at large, but that shouldn’t be the primary reason for infringing on one’s personal liberties. I know that laws are enacted that do this (they, for the most part, follow specific political/legal paths before promulgation) but, we, as a society, must be very careful to chose which ones infringe on what personal freedoms before committing them to the public arena. If someone wants to smoke marijuana, then why can’t they (remove our current legal situation)? We let others drink to excess. We allow some to eat unhealthily. Some are watched as they deface their bodies (hey, if we are trying to legislate individual body consumption, shouldn’t ink be targeted for its potential side effects?). What about tobacco? Or circumcision? At what point do we impose all of our cultural/social/religious/political predilections on the individual?

Marijuana is just another example of the constant social debate between individual/collective rights. It’s certainly not the first (Temperance?) nor will it be the last. My only concern is that when the pendulum swings too far (I’m not against some collective rights – they also have their place) to the collective and personal liberties are trampled on, where is the demonstrably justifiable reason for it? If it’s only due to health risks, then they’ll need something more persuasive.

   

To my mind, it has to do with what is a personal risk and what is a social risk. An addiction to hard drugs is a potent thing; people steal, kill, sell thier bodies and their dignities and even die for it. This has a negative impact on society as a whole and therefore calls for a social response.

A heroin addict becomes the community's problem by virtue of the negative impact the addict has on those around him or her.

This is not the case with marijuana. Yes, you can find examples of people stealing for it, and you could, and you could, perhaps, measure the negative imapct that the loss of initiative that marijuana causes in our youth. But these would be tenuous connections at best -- overwhelmingly, the detrimetnal effects of marijuana aren't a social problem.

   

people also steal, kill, and die over things like tobacco, gas, and money; should we make these illegal aswell?

   

Not too the extent that they do over hard drugs. You can come up with any bizarre scenario that you like: I could smother someone to death with a teddy bear. That doesn't have any bearing on whether or not teddy bears should be banned. Why? Because it doesn't represent the majority.

The difference is, hard drugs have a negative impact on peoples' lives more often than not. They shouldn't be legal just because some people can use them acceptably because it doesn't represent the majority.

   

I do think that hard drugs should be illegal, not pot. most people grow their own pot for their own usues if they can't afford to buy it.

   

Like I said a few times already, I don't consider pot in the same league as the 'hard drugs' I was referring to... pot should be legalized.

   

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