Time To Discuss Drug Prohibition? 1367
gplus writes "December 5th was the 75th anniversary of the end of alcohol prohibition in the US. The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed which argues that now may be the time to discuss our war on drugs and the drug prohibition currently in place. The article argues that the harm caused by the banned substance must be balanced against the harms caused by the prohibition. As to why Americans in 1933 finally voted to end prohibition, while we barely even discuss it: 'Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before prohibition, which tempered their fears. But few Americans now can recall the decades when the illicit drugs of today were sold and consumed legally. If they could, a post-prohibition future might prove less alarming.'"
SMOKE (Score:5, Funny)
SMOKE
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously....Why is it that it took a constitutional amendment to start prohibition of alcohol, and bring it back...but, other drugs have been taken out of public use by the swipe of a pen?
I wish someone could bring that suit forth...sure would have some MAJOR repercussions if that case could win through the court system....any millionaires out there that have some free time, and want to bring this suit forth?
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
PS George Zimmer [wikipedia.org], of Men's Warehouse fame, is one millionaire with the time and money to fight these laws.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Informative)
Because they didn't have Wickard vs Filburn in 1920. Nowdays the federal government can ban any material they wish under the guise of interstate commerce. Which hasn't been all bad, it also enabled the fed to pass things like environmental regulation and some labor laws. Still..
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
None of that has anything to do with drug use, you are attempting to show causation where there is merely correlation.
But then again I'm sure you didn't read the article, which implies and outright states in some ways, that a lot of the problems associated with drug use are caused by its prohibition.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who still thinks that drug-related problems are cured by their prohibition is an idiot.
I think that is equally, if not more, true then the way you put it. Drug abuse is a problem that the people on both sides of the legalization debate wish would just go away. It won't. The abuse of intoxicating substances will be with us until the end of time. Until people realize there is no magic cure-all to the problem of abuse, we won't have a sane drug policy in this country. Prohibition or legalization are answers to an entirely different question, but defiantly not the question of abuse.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree - I will also add that there are currently more legal addicts than illegal.
I know of quite a number of people who are addicted to prescription pain medication and have been for years. 15 minutes before "time" for their pill and they get all panicky trying to find the thing (if they do not take it one time they will experience "pain" - I've yet to find a pain pill that works that way). Many of them take the same, and more, pills as so called "drug addicts" that would be put in jail because they do not have a doctors script. I have realities who had knee surgery (torn ACL - a real injury) and 15 years later are on regular high strength drugs. Heck, I have relatives who are trying to "get off" those pills and have been going to a methadone clinic for over two years now (uh huh - they really are wanting to get off).
As far as I can tell is that most of the legal addicts can still function in society despite their addiction - though a number will do things any addict does when the supply starts to stop (say, for instance, a cousins mother decided to quit paying for the methadone clinic and suddenly, in an totally unexplained and unrelated incidence, the exact amount of money needed for the clinic "disappeared" from her purse and he disappears during those same days he used to go - of course those are totally unrelated incidences).
I would also add that the number of people that wanted my fathers higher dosage of hydrocodone given to him after his bypass surgery were an absolute shock to us. Even worse were the people who just picked on up out of his hand when the noted what he had (they had a prescription, but for a lesser does and were "hurting" that day).
As of right now the main thing separating legal vs illegal addicts is the ability to maintain a steady job while addicted or have enough money to fund any doctor out there. The illegals can not control the addiction enough for a part time job and enough to pay the slightly greater cost of the legal market for them.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Interesting)
Although I'm a confirmed smoker, I have never seen/experienced nicotine provide a physical pleasure that can't be obtained for free by hyper-ventilating. It's hard to define "abuse" in the case of tobacco/nicotine because I have no concept of what "moderation" can mean when the drug provides no real pleasurable gain, while simultaneously being so addictive (and destructive). Smoking, in the U.S. at least, has pretty much gone out-of-vogue by this point, which (since its intial attraction is for social purposes) has severely decreased the number of new smokers over the last 10-15 years. But tobacco/nicotine will for many decades yet remove (cumulatively) millions of years of life from Americans through their contribution to heart disease, cancers, et al. But there's also the fact that tobacco/nicotine actually decreases the quality of the oft-shortened life for the far majority of addicts. Don't believe me? That means you're not a smoker...so go ask them yourself if they would be happier if they had never picked up that first cigarette. They'll almost all (unless they're new to it) admit emphatically that they would be.
Alcohol, however, is totally socially-acceptable, despite the best efforts of its opponents, even though the abuse of it is at the root of all sorts of scary statistics and anecdotal stories of vehicular death and domestic violence. And don't forgot all the liver failure, heart disease, et al, that are contributed too by excessive drinking.
The idea that ALL the "soft" drugs together, if legalized, could have as much of a negative impact on the lives of Americans as these two legal drugs, is frankly, laughable.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Interesting)
No amount of taxation (limited to) DRUGS will be enought to make up to the massive loss of productivity of drug addicts.
It's important to remember that the loss of productivity will only come from NEW drug users (as the productivity of the current users is already lost). Despite $SCARYSTATISTIC, I don't know how anyone could reasonably estimate what the loss of productivity would be without performing a significant and rigorous study for that specific purpose.
Also, not to be forgotten, is the quantity of resources/productivity saved by not fighting a "War on Drugs". Although, like I said before, I think a study would have to be done for any real help in calculating this total "net loss/gain to society", my $0.02 is that there would not be that many new addicts, and that the far majority of the use (especially of something like pot/ecstasty) would be recreational, impacting the productivity of the users VERY little, while providing MASSIVE amounts of tax revenue. Our culture is already pretty negative towards meth, crack and heroin and so I think the number of NEW abusers would be pretty small (as a percentage of the population), however the health impact of abuse of these drugs is much more severe, so I could definitely see these drugs being a net loss if legalized. However, I could also see the numbers for abuse actually going down due to the greater acceptance of "moderate use" of the drug (see: excesses/abuses during Prohibition vs. after) so I could also see these drugs being a net gain, it's just pretty close in my mind. The other drugs (shrooms, acid, et al) would have such a small abuser rate, with the effects of abuse being relatively minor, that I don't think it's worth bickering over.
Overall, though, I would never argue just on the cost/savings to the system. The much more important point is the principle of "greatest liberty for all" held so dearly by us libertarians. This principle, if accepted, quickly tips the scale in the argument far in the favor of legalization. Of course, if THAT principle were held by our politicians we wouldn't see nationalized health care any time soon (further decreasing the cost to society)...
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
a couple years ago I read a story about kids in the midwest getting high by strangling themselves.
Seriously, the human race will always find a way to get high. Always.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Chris Rock put it best... What about the good side of crack? For $2.99 you could buy yourself a brand new sofa and a stereo system...
Think about that for a second. And watch shows like intervention. Anyone who still thinks that drug-related problems are caused by their prohibition is an idiot.
Speaking of Freedom of Speech, Expression, etc. Are you really Free when you do hard drugs? Or are the drugs the ones in control?
Except those of us who lead successful, even famous, lives and do all kinds of recreational drugs on a regular basis. No addiction, no overdosing, no problem.
It's much more common than you think, we just hide it because we fear the damage to our lives the LAWS will cause. If we speak out and say "Hey, it's no worse than smoking, or drinking!", we'll likely lose our reputations, assets, families, hell even our freedom.
You know at least 5 people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis and you don't even know it.
You know at least 10 people that have tried or have wanted to try a "harder" drug.
The point is, it's hidden all around you already. You live in that world, and you can't deny it and longer. I function just fine doing what I do, because I'm not stupid about it. You will have addicts either way, so you might as well not pay to house me in prison as well, using your tax dollars that could be going to your children's education, or even fixing that annoying pothole in your street.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen all kinds of people on that show hooked on pain killers and other legal drugs, are you saying we are idiots for not adding them to the list of banned substances?
Bonus points if you can tell me how the joint I smoked last night affected your life or anyone around you, and why I deserve to be punished for that but the people at the bar don't.
It's funny when the ignorant start calling out the idiots.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
>Think about that for a second. And watch shows like intervention. Anyone who still thinks that drug-related problems are caused by their prohibition is an idiot.
Counter argument: alcohol and tobacco. Of two drugs to have legal, these two are among the most dangerous and addictive there are. While many people die from their use, they have almost none of the problems that we associate with the 'hard' drugs. There are no gangs fighting turf wars over alcohol, and almost nobody killing themselves with dirty alcohol.
Some people can't handle any drugs, and some people can shoot heroin on the weekends and never have any kind of problem. Hell, most of the people I know who have tried meth have never had any trouble with it, besides legal troubles. Anyone looking at the costs associated with drugs has to admit that the cost of prohibition is far greater than their cost if they were legal.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever considered it possible that much of the harm that came to that neighborhood was from the very illegality of the drugs and the black market that prohibition enables rather than from anything inherent in the drugs themselves? Drug addition certainly has a devastating effect on its own, but I argue that prohibition has made the effects worse rather than effectively stopping the trafficking, sale, and consumption of the drugs it seeks to eliminate.
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Funny)
'sarchasm'.
Is that the gulf between a sarcastic comment and someone who takes it literally?
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
No 13 year olds are going to be whoring themselves out if crack were legal market price. It'd be a couple quarters for a rock... Now a lot of 13 year olds would die of heart attacks....but that's a different story.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Funny)
No! Cold medicine has other important uses.
A guy is walking down a dark street, when he hears something behind him. He looks behind him and sees a casket, and it's going, 'dum ... dum ... dum ... dum ... ' and it's followin' him. So he gets frightened and goes faster, and the casket goes faster â" 'dum, dum, dum, dum, dum ... '
... dum ... dum ... dum ... ' and he knows it's going to crash through the door ... then it crashes through the door, and he grabs the only thing he can. He grabs a bottle of cold medicine and he throws it at the casket ... and it stops the coffin!
So he starts to trot and runs into his apartment building and the casket crashes through the door and comes at him faster, up the stairs - 'dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum!'
He slams the door, and it crashes through his apartment door, so he runs into his bathroom and he slams the door and he hears, 'dum
Re:SMOKE (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalize everything and supply and demand will take care of that problem for you. With a wide choice of alternatives at competitive prices, meth's popularity would dwindle, if only because of the health consequences.
Think about this: (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people drink bathtub gin anymore? Moonshine? Rotgut? When alcohol prohibition was lifted in 1933, people went back to "the good stuff." I guarantee that if certain controlled substances were legal you'd see certain very unsafe and insane substitutes become a whole lot less popular.
Or better yet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Or better yet (Score:5, Funny)
I'll drink to that....err.....wait.....
Re:Or better yet (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked with a guy who was driving and was hit head-on by some drunk idiot. He and his girlfriend were both in pretty bad shape for a while. I know that alcohol's not going to get banned again, but you wonder how many lives it would save if it did?
Of course, musing about something like this on
Re:Or better yet (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd save lots of lives. Directly and indirectly. As an ER doc, I see drug use of all types in all peoples. Alcohol is far and away the most "dangerous" of them all. However, banning it won't stop it's use (as we've found out). Banning other drugs doesn't stop their use (as we've found out). Keeping a drug illegal certainly limits the drug's use as many people do not want to pay to potential legal / social cost of getting caught. But many folks will, so you put the drug underground and let the Nasty People who live there (drug cartels, Mafia and just the rampant bottom end of humanity) profit off it.
I really doubt that the US is ready to go there. Too many boogie men in that basement. It is much easier to paper up the problem, stick the police on it and hide your head in the sand.
Re:Or better yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at it from a more cynical point of view, the federal government has built a cathedral of sorts on the war on drugs with a tremendous budget. There are thousands of federal, state and local government jobs with millions upon billions of dollars invested in this misguided war. Those persons will clutch at that budget as firmly as they can since their own livelihood depends on drug prohibition.
Alcohol is definitely the most dangerous drug in use in the US right now, having more deaths directly attributed to its use than all illegal drugs combined. We as a country have previously established that it is impossible to eliminate alcohol entirely and instead moved to strict controls and high taxation. I can only hope that in the future we make that same move with drugs since decriminalizing it is the first step to bringing help to the addicts who need it most.
Decriminalization would mitigate a lot of drug-related social issues(prostitution, gang violence, illegal weapons trade) and heavy taxation would allow drug users to support the social and medical costs of the abusers.
lives saved (Score:5, Interesting)
but you wonder how many lives it would save
None. Death is the debt all men owe. You get only one life and one death. The life can be spent once only, the death can be deferred, but the life cannot be "saved" and the death cannot be prevented.
I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
The war on drugs makes a lot of money for a lot people on both sides of the law.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
As a taxpayer, I disagree.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't think of it as a see-saw, think of it as some sort of three-person see-saw. I had an uncle tell me about an interesting sight he saw in New Jersey several years ago. In the city he was in, the cops had a very large SWAT-style van that they would throw confiscated drugs into. The drug dealers used children, aged around 9 to 10 or so, to actually sell the drugs. The cops wouldn't arrest a kid of course, so they'd capture the kid, toss the drugs into the van, and when the van was full they turned around and sold the drugs in the van back to the drug dealers.
The dealers would sell the drugs, buy them back from the cops, and sell them again. Sort of perpetual motion, except there's a third party involved: the people who are neither cops nor drug dealers. Tax payers are paying for the cops to actually be there and have the authority to take those kinds of bribes and so on, and the drug addicts are paying to keep the drug dealers in business.
Alcohol prohibition showed us that you can't stop people from doing something, even when it gets into the fucking Constitution, so we shouldn't work on stopping the addicts, we should focus on stopping the tax-money. Make the police handle drug raids as volunteers, not on the dime of the tax payers, and you'd see them not give a fuck.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
As a taxpayer, you're not one of the "a lot people on both sides of the law". Doesn't mean they don't exist, or that they don't have an enormous vested interest in keeping drugs illegal.
Think of it like the broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org]. It's a fallacy that smashing a shopkeeper's window is doing a good thing for the economy, but it's not a fallacy to suggest that there are some people who would benefit from smashing the window.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
More profit than not, I'd say.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
All the criminalization seems to do is increase the incentive for providing expensive, weak, drugs cut with all sorts of bad chemicals to people who are prepared to pay almost any price for them. I've stopped using myself, but I'd say decriminalize just so I can get help from some form of controlled institution for my friends before they O.D. without having to worry about getting them arrested.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Those people if they were given the chance to live, to go to school outside of a warzone, would be spending money, going to school (creating jobs for teachers and universities), and contributing to this economy. We haven't even considered the approximately 1 million nonviolent drug offenders that we spend 20k-40k / year to keep imprisoned.
We all know war is profitable for some few and devastating for most. The War on Drugs is no exception. The question is whether or not there are those who have a vested interest in continuing The War, but whether or not we can put a stop to it.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
all of which can also be said of legal drugs such as alcohol.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
To some extent, yes.
And sugar.
And Diet Coke.
And Krispy Kreme donuts.
You have to draw the line somewhere; I'm not sure it's correctly drawn right now.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to draw the line somewhere; I'm not sure it's correctly drawn right now.
Do you have to draw the line somewhere? Does the government actually have to step in and say, it's all right to put these substances in your body, but not those?
I disagree. I think it is not necessary. More importantly, I think the government has no right to tell us what we are and are not allowed to take into our own bodies.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the government actually have to step in and say, it's all right to put these substances in your body, but not those?
In some cases, yes. As mentioned elsewhere antibiotics should be controlled in order to prevent widespread drug-resistant strains.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I'm not positive about marajuana, but as for Coke, Heroine and Meth; a single use is usually all it takes to become an addict.
This is a widespread belief, but there is absolutely no evidence that it's true. None. Zero.
If you ask any cop, he will tell you that there is no such thing as a casual coke/heroine/meth user, only addicts. Once you do it, you don't stop.
Asking a cop for unbiased information about drugs is like asking Bill Gates for unbiased information about Linux.
Now there are RARE cases of people who only do it a few times, but they are RARE.
[[citation needed]] And I'm talking peer-reviewed medical studies, not DEA or DARE propaganda.
Please don't confuse recreational drugs with brain-rewriting poison.
I think you're the only one doing that here.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
And you don't speak about the fact that banning drugs has not made them go away. All those problems you list are problems we have right now. How, exactly, has throwing people in jail, ruining their lives (even more), funded gangs (through drug-sale profits), and generally walking all over the constitution actually achieved your goal of reducing the harm drugs cause?
Legalizing would not change most of those things, except one important one: the drug cartels (a source of much violence) go out of business overnight.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you seriously think that there is some vast pool of people that would suddenly choose to become drug addicts if only it were legal?
Every one of the people that inclined to become a substance abuser already is.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you seriously think that drug use wouldn't balloon if it was made legal?
I think it would balloon initially and then return to a homeostatic point, once the novelty wore off. There's a reason people say: "Ugh, I can't party like I did in college anymore." The novelty wears off, that's why most Dutch aren't pot heads even though they could be if they so chose.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
And these things don't happen now, because of the War on (Some) Drugs?
At least one of the reasons for repealing this prohibition is that it is ineffectual. Drugs are as prevalent as they would be without it. There's just more crime and corruption to go along with them.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll agree that there's a profit motive.
But you don't speak about the abyss of drug addiction, the income-sapping expense, the parents of kids that forget parenting while doing drugs, the accidents on the freeway, the madness of things like meth addiction and its incredible debilitating affects on the body.
So it's a good thing we have drug prohibition because without it these things would be rampant? Oh wait....
You have failed to show how things would be worse if you could buy a 'teen of meth for $40 from the Walgreen's vs. being able to buy a 'teen of meth from Joe the Biker at the bar for $80. It's not like prohibition has kept drugs away from people. I know of no one who wants drugs who can't find them.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Interesting)
If I wanted to find meth, it would probably take me weeks, or months. I don't even know where to start.
No, it wouldn't. It would take you a couple days at most.
First off, you have your immediate friends. Even those that say they "wouldn't ever do drugs" - odds are one of them does some kind of illegal drug if you've more than one or two close friends. Weed, speed, coke, etc.
Failing option one, just go to where young people congretate like a college. Go up to someone and ask if they know where you can get some weed - a relatively innocuous and common question on many campuses.
When you get to a dealer, see if he knows someone that can get you your drug of choice. (He might even have it himself.) Once you've done this you have an established contact where you can pretty much get more any time you'd like.
It's really not as hard as you make it out to be. It's frightening easy, in fact. Hell, I could buy drugs in my high school. IN my high school. I went to class with at least one weed dealer than I knew of. I'm sure I could have found stronger substances easily if I so desired. I'm not one to use most drugs, but if I had wanted to find them it wouldn't have been all that hard.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd suck for you, but society shouldn't be designed to placate and protect people with addictive personalities. Either you control yourself or you die. Either is a positive outcome for society.
Not positive for you, however. This is why we hope you can train yourself to do the former.
But if you can't, well... You will go extinct. And that's not a bad thing, in the long run.
I'm sorry, but it's true.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, what about my $200?
wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
if something like marijuana would legalized, the taxes collected on that would be staggeringly huge
if you want to argue profit (for the government), you argue for legalization
sure there are entrenched interests, but there is no larger entrenched interest than the taxman
Re:wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
if something like marijuana would legalized, the taxes collected on that would be staggeringly huge
This is 100% correct.
I was reading TFA and laughing the whole way.
"The Americans who voted in 1933 to repeal prohibition differed greatly in their reasons for overturning the system. But almost all agreed that the evils of failed suppression far outweighed the evils of alcohol consumption."
Compare to this article (and many like it):
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/s_518872.html [pittsburghlive.com]
What happened in 1930 that suddenly gave the repeal movement political muscle? The answer is the Great Depression and the ravages that it inflicted on federal income-tax revenues.
...
And a House leader of Congress' successful attempt to propose the Prohibition-ending 21st Amendment said in 1934 that "if (anti-prohibitionists) had not had the opportunity of using that argument, that repeal meant needed revenue for our government, we would not have had repeal for at least 10 years."
There's no doubt that widespread understanding of Prohibition's futility and of its ugly, unintended side-effects made it easier for Congress to repeal the 18th Amendment. But these public sentiments were insufficient, by themselves, to end the war on alcohol.
Ending it required a gargantuan revenue shock -- to the U.S. Treasury.
I wonder which will be easier to sell to the American people:
Legalizing & taxing hemp
Legalizing & taxing marijuana
Cutting social spending - health care, social security, etc etc etc
Cutting military spending (lol)
That's in the order I think is most to least likely to happen.
Why cut when you can (tax &) spend?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Informative)
The government makes BILLIONS on the WOD, the get it from the taxpayers and they get it from confiscations. They've now taken to farming out some of their duties to private prisons and other private services. Those private companies hire the politicians as spokes mouths and PR pukes and pay them millions.
The only loser is society as a whole as the cancer of high taxation, putative laws and centralized power take their toll.
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. No better way to punish criminals than forcing them to deal with the bureaucracy. :3
Yes it's time. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the majority of the population can be convicted of a crime at one time or another, then it's proveable that the action is not sufficiently damaging to be a crime. Those RIAA bastards are profiting immorally and should be disbarred! Oh wait, we're onto drugs now? In that case, I maintain my statement.
Last 3 presidents (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Last 3 presidents (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the problem is that it isn't about morality at this point, it's just a weird social phenomenon. A lot of people hear someone talking about legalizing it, and they just say *GASP* marijuana! There's such a large social stigma on it at this point, lots of people don't think about the subject logically, so if someone tries to legalize it, they meet resistance without reason from so many people that most career politicians don't want to be bothered.
Japan is like this too (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that has been annoying me to no end lately is several incidents in Japan of college kids getting busted with marijuana.
Now the media is calling it an "outbreak" and a "scourge" and bemoaning the morals of the young people, blah blah blah. They trot out so-called experts who talk about "Marijana Psychological Disorder." It's Reefer Madness all over again, and absolutely no one is open to discussing it in a rational manner. Forget the fact that these kids weren't hurting anyone or anything. Forget the fact that most of the rest of the world looks the other way on college pot use. And how about the fact that this country drinks itself to sleep every night? Bunch of hypocrites.
I take a Libertarian POV. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I take a Libertarian POV. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if drugs were legalized, it still doesn't mean their carry-on effects, such as murder, drink-driving, et cetera, are legal.
I think a lot of the crime related to the drug industry relates to the fact that drug entrepreneurs cannot depend on the police to defend their property rights with respect to the goods they sell, and are forced to handle their own security.
I imagine the streets would be safer if one was allowed to make a phone call and report that their entire inventory for narcotics was just stolen and get the police investigating the robbery and trying to return the stolen property.
I'm sure the police would appreciate the irony as well.
Re:Say you legalize everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace drugs with sugar or fat and ask yourself the same question.
Potato chips create more health care costs than any drug ever has.
Re:Say you legalize everything (Score:5, Insightful)
There was MASSIVE marijuana smoking during the late 1960s/early 1970s with few problems. It was typical to attend concerts where the smoke was a thick fog and security/cops didn't bother anyone about it.
I did plenty of drugs back then, smoked like a freight train, and was around a large peer group that did likewise. I haven't smoked in many years for legal reasons, but strongly favor legalization. Alcohol is a vastly worse social drug in every way, especially with regard to making users aggressive.
IMO we'd be much better off with weed as an alternative social lubricant.
No, how about... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, how about we let it be decided at the STATE LEVEL? Let the individual states decide their own drug laws, not the federal government.
Unconstitutional (Score:5, Interesting)
Reconsideration sounds prudent.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that alcohol is already legal and is more dangerous than at least the most common recreational drugs, It would make sense to at least legalise other recreational drugs that are on par or less harmful than it (marijuana being the most obvious candidate).
"Hard" drugs like Cocaine should probably remain illegal - it is impossible (or prohibitively difficult, at least) to "use them responsibly" and their health effects are much more marked.
Permitting broad autonomy to people in cases where there is not a clear and strong societal interest otherwise makes sense - broad restrictions on recreational drugs don't have arguments that meet the bar we should be holding up.
(I am not a libertarian, by the way)
Re:Reconsideration sounds prudent.. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Hard" drugs like Cocaine should probably remain illegal - it is impossible (or prohibitively difficult, at least) to "use them responsibly" and their health effects are much more marked.
Cite? The fact that Cocaine was used as an active ingredient in a popular fizzy drink would seem to speak otherwise. And let's not forget that Cocaine is known because in its native region, the indigenous people used it constantly and they did alright.
Re:Reconsideration sounds prudent.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reconsideration sounds prudent.. (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't just a "drink" at the time, and wasn't particularly popular by modern standards... Sodas were considered a form of medicine, and used as such. Note names like Pepsi, derived from peptic. It's only today that we look at their mass-market appeal and misunderstand their origins.
Chewing coca leaves is worlds away from doing cocaine.
Also, I would recommend some reading material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud#Cocaine [wikipedia.org]
Re:Reconsideration sounds prudent.. (Score:5, Informative)
"Hard" drugs like Cocaine should probably remain illegal
It's important to legalize it all, and the reason has nothing to do with how safe any given drug is.
Using things like cocaine "safely" may be possible, but it's certainly outside what I'd expect of most of the population. The idea when you ban something, though, is that it will have a desired effect. In this case: less people using the drug (and therefor a safer/etc society). The many decades of prohibition has shown us otherwise. Drug use still happens, and will likely always happen. Trying to ban something and hoping people will magically stop using it is not just logically wrong, there's now many years of empirical evidence that shows that it's the wrong approach.
The particulars of any given drug are not relevant - banning them has not reduced their use in any significant amount.
So the question comes down to this: "Who do you want meeting the supply, when the demand is fairly constant?" That's a simple econ question, and there are three major answers: Private Industry, Public (.gov) Programs, or Illegal (violent) Black Markets.
Right now, we, as a society, are choosing the black market supply. We are handing large profits to violent gangs, providing very profitable opportunities for corruption, etc. Is this really the answer we want to choose? As a free-market loving American, I usually advocate the Private Industry solution, but really, either public or private solutions are significantly better than handing that market to gangs.
As a pure economic side note: even with the worst drugs, it's much better to take the standard taxes involved with them and divert that to useful things like healthcare for people that want to get off drugs and such. We could trivially fund most of those programs with how much basic tax income we'd make off drugs, and that's just talking basic things like sales tax.
On a note specific to the cocaine/etc you mention: I'd rather the addict be able to buy inexpensive and clean drugs, in a way they could fund from a McJob, than have them turn to crime to try and fund their habit. The fact that you don't see large amounts of violent crime to fund tobacco habits is evidence of this. /the only way to really stop drugs is to target demand, with tools like Good Education, not laws banning them
Re:Reconsideration sounds prudent.. (Score:5, Informative)
[...] cocaine, LSD, or heroin, because of the strength of the addiction of those drugs [...] than less-or-non-addictive drugs (like pot, alcohol, cigarettes, etc).
Your categories are rather flawed there. Nicotine is far more addictive than LSD, marijuana, or alcohol, and arguably more so than cocaine and heroin. LSD is less addictive than any of the others (well, basically tied with marijuana). Alcohol is not particularly addictive in modest quantity, but if consumed in large quantities is quite strongly addictive -- in fact, it's the only drug on your lists where the withdrawl can kill you.
The current legal status of various substances has little or nothing to do with how harmful or addicting they are.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
You fools! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, just look at this government ad [youtube.com]! How do argue with logic like "It's a fact because it's true"?
Suck on that, dope fiends!
OMFG A TOPIC I CAN RELATE TO! (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in California. A few years back, the voters passed the medicinal marijuana act, opening the gateways for use by cancer patients. Pot is *almost* decriminalized now.
I say *almost* because my pot dealers (plural) have been a pot dealers all their lives. Only difference now is they got a doctor to give them a pot prescription for "nerves" and instead of having to go through the old network of pot growers, they can pick up a few OZ's from any number of dispensaries here in the bay area. Sells their OZ's off as 8ths for 2x what you paid, and make a nice profit.
Then there is the supplier side. There is no regulation on where a club gets its pot. A few years back, we had a sheriff shot when he stumbled upon a pot farm on Mt Uhminum being run by mexican gangsters. Even though they couldn't find a direct connection to the clubs, many people suspected that that is where the weed was heading.
Did I mention ALOT of the marijuana dispensaries look more like a club or a coffee shop and less like a pharmacy?
Prohibition repeal needs to happen. We waste way to much money on the drug war. Not that i'm complaining about the lack of regulation with the medical marijuana situation in California as it works to my advantage. I am never more than 15 minutes away from multiple suppliers. This is pot I'm talking about though, a drug thought to be fairly benign by a majority consensus.
My fear though is that all forms of lawmakers, city, county, state and fed have all been riding the fail truck for a while now. I could see them doing something like selling out to a special interest drug lord and making laws that on the surface seem like they benefit us, but really only benefit the drug lord.
Some things need to be regulated, others don't. Weed should have no more regulation than beer or tobacco.
Even though the purpose of end drug prohibition would be to un-fuck things, given the track record of our politicians they're going to figure out a way to sneak a fucking in there, somehow.
The time has always been right... (Score:5, Insightful)
To discuss the war on drugs.
From a libertarian standpoint, what right does the Government have to tell people what to do with their own body? This debate is as much about the power of government as it is about the morality of drug use.
However, there are some angles to the issue which never seem to be discussed:
I think the reason why the opponents of the War on Drugs failed is that they never discussed it in terms that ordinary average Americans could relate. They discussed it in terms of dollars, but federal law enforcement spending is truly minuscule compared to things like social security and defense. They talked about it in terms of prison population, when the average person thought simply, "well, I just won't use drugs and won't go to prison..." Instead, they should have framed the debate in terms of individual rights.
That's what the gay movement did, and look where they are now. It seems that Americans don't want the government to mandate morality, and the gay movement capitalized on that. The reason why the War on Drugs lasted so long was because its opponents never pushed the civil rights aspect of it.
A MUST READ (Score:5, Informative)
"The Consumer Union's Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs", 1972, Consumer's Union
I usually detest peoples' hyped up assertions such as the title of this post, but in this case I think it's almost subdued in comparison to the facts of the matter.
Due in large part to the contents of this book, marijuana was almost legalized ... during the *Nixon* administration. Yes, that's when us long hairs were making a lot of noise about many things, including drugs. But we had very little power then. It wasn't us who was attempting to change the law.
Reading this book is like finding out that the tin foil hat crowd was right all along. This story is a conspiracy theory that happens to be true. This book provides the evidence, with references. It is an even handed historical recounting. It's hard for some people to believe it's even handed because the conclusion and its supporting evidence are so drastically lop sided.
The summary is that the war on drug users started as and continues to be conducted for the economic benefit of the drug manufacturers and sellers that can guarantee sufficient tax income to the government. And more recently for the direct benefit of the government since they can now seize any property belonging to anyone they care to arrest.
I was a substance abuse counselor for 3.5 years, and addiction remained one of my main interests through my PhD and beyond. The worst bodily harm comes from two drugs that are both legal: tobacco and alcohol. The worst withdrawals come from these two, plus another legal drug (or class thereof), benzodiazapines (valium family). I would rather a person use any drug, legal or illegal, other than these 3. Withdrawal from tobacco won't kill you, but the other two can.
The bottom line is the URL for the book. If you care about this subject, no matter what side of any part of the argument, you really should read this book in order to learn how things came to be the way they are. It is one of the best, but certainly not the only, example of psyops (psychological operations) perpetrated by the US government on its own citizens. That's not hyperbole -- I studied that subject too.
It's available in its entirety at: http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/LIBRARY/studies/cu/cumenu.htm [druglibrary.org]
Re:A MUST READ (Score:5, Interesting)
So - the legal drugs, with the widest exposure - provide the worst cases. Is that possibly because they provide the most cases? Would legalising other drugs provide greater acceptance, and presumably greater uptake? Even if it didn't produce more users, would it increase consumption by existing users? Would that increased consumption result in greater "bodily harm" and worse "withdrawals"?
Live feed of drug deals (Score:5, Interesting)
Annoyed with the situation on his block in San Francisco, a techie has created Adam's Block [adamsblock.com], which has an HD camera pointed at a drug dealer corner. You can watch the deals go down. Try expanding the left window to full screen; the HD detail is there.
There's an attached blog and audit trail, and people are logging SFPD cars as they go by.
Fans of the site are waiting for an arrest. Hasn't happened yet.
It's streamed out via Justin.tv, so there's enough bandwidth for Slashdot users to watch.
The Onion got it right (Score:5, Insightful)
The Onion ran one of their parody news articles a few years back concerning drugs. IIRC, the headline was "Drugs now legal if user is gainfully employed." I think that really cuts to the heart of the matter. What we should be most concerned about is people contributing in a positive manner to society. The negative effects to society in relation to drug use mostly revolve around crimes committed to acquire the drugs; the violent actions some people commit once under the influence of drugs; and harm done to children/teenagers who start drugs while their bodies and minds are still developing.
If people did drugs in the privacy of their own home, went to work everyday and played their part in the overall good of society, and you had to be 18 or 21 (like cigarettes and booze in the USA) to legally do drugs, these main concerns would go away.
Some people will never be able to wrap their minds around this concept. They've been raised with the "drugs==bad" mentality and can't see what goes on everyday around them. We already allow this with certain drugs. Alcohol, make no mistake about it, is a drug. It is one of the worst drugs around. Not to generalize (because there are "happy drunks"), but it makes people mean, and makes them do and say things they wouldn't otherwise. It is very addictive, especially to those genetically pre-disposed to alcoholism. It incapacitates users to a point that many other drugs don't. And the long-term health effects are among the worst of all drugs out there. But, for whatever reason, partaking in this drug is socially acceptable if you are 21 or older in the USA (other ages, usually younger in other countries). And then we have nicotine, the active ingredient in cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products. This is an extremely addictive drug, so much so that many heroin addicts find it easier to kick smack than to give up smoking.
And then we have "controlled substances," of which doctors write out legitimate prescriptions by the the millions every day. Oxycontin is known in some circles as "hillbilly heroin," because the effects are similar, and it is the closest equivalent that can be found in rural areas. Other opioid medications like Vicodin are equally addictive, and when it comes time to quit them, the user might has well have been taking heroin. The withdrawals of any opiate or opioid or all the same: a hellish process that makes user either want to get a fix ASAP, or just die. Yet these drugs are legal.
I've gotten off-track a little bit, but for whatever reason, there's three drugs that are very much legal if you are the right age, or have the right doctor. Why are they legal when marijuana is less intoxicating than alcohol, and smoking it at worst provides the same risk for cancer as cigarettes? (I think weed is less likely to cause cancer because it is not pumped full of extra chemicals, like the tobacco companies do to keep their users hooked.) A habitual marijuana user will certainly feel "bummed" if they run out, but they won't go through withdrawals that are potentially deadly, as in the case of alcohol or opiates. And a pothead can quit with just willpower; as the commercials for many stop-smoking-aids, willpower is not enough to kick the cigarette habit.
We tolerate alcohol, tobacco and addictive prescription medications, as long as their users are otherwise productive members of society. I can only see at as a great hypocrisy that other drugs are not afforded the same opportunity--especially when we are talking about something as innocuous as marijuana. Drop all the drug laws now. If people let the drugs turn themselves into criminals, there are other laws to take care of that. Just like laws that take care of drunk drivers, people that steal cigarettes, or people that forge fake prescriptions. If consenting adults want to do these things in the privacy of their own home, and keep them out of the reach of their children, and stay on the right side of the law, there is no reason they shouldn't be allowed too.
As to why they are not allowed to, there are a lot of reasons why the dope dealers and the lawmakers don't want it to change; there's plenty of posts above mine that state these reasons in an insightful manner.
Massachusetts Just Decriminalized Marijuana (Score:5, Insightful)
This past Election Day, the people of Massachusetts just voted 2:1 to decriminalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana [amherstbulletin.com] (over 50 typical joints). If caught with that much pot, the "criminal" is issued a ticket, about equivalent to a ticket for an open container of beer, that can be mailed in with a $100 fine without even a court appearance.
Every day that goes by without Massachusetts falling into chaos or bedlam will prove how stupid pot prohibition is. Something like 50% of America's over 1 million imprisoned criminals committed nonviolent drug crimes, and about 850,000 people are arrested for pot every year. Instead of spending an average of $30,000 per year per prisoner, we could be collecting income and sales taxes from the people growing, distributing and consuming it. Probably could be a top agriculture export for this country. And with an entire state running OK mostly post-prohibition, the counterexample in favor of sanity should be undeniable.
The Swiss experiment worked (Score:5, Insightful)
For countries with the political courage to try treating drug use as a social and medical problem, instead of as a legal one, the jury is in. It works. Switzerland has had prescription heroin for a decade on an experimental basis. They just voted to make the law permanent. Nothing chic about heroin in Switzerland. Just a bunch of old losers. Addiction rate is going down. Most hold crappy jobs. Opoids don't completely incapacitate a person -- as many on pain meds know. (They are hard on the gut) The Netherlands have also had progressive policies. There is of course a downside (particularly as people from countries with prohibition come in and cause problems), but in the balance the Dutch are okay with the openness. The great thing about relegating drugs to the medical sphere is that the cool factor evaporates. And the financial incentive dissipates.
Prohibition uses sovereign power to create artificial scarcity increasing price and creating an underworld. Get this crap in the sunshine. Give it to the people who want it for cheap and they will mainly fill low paying jobs -- with some exceptions.
Handle it in the private sector. You can test for drug use for security clearances and operator licenses etc. We need people to push brooms and flip burgers.
"Dude, here's a spliff, now take this broom and sawdust and clean the warehouse. And by the way if you want a better life the clinic is open and the NA meeting is down the street."
The exception is of course with creative people. They can do fine with drugs if they don't go overboard. Code poets, jazz men and artists will use. But they also get clean, too. Up to them I say. This puritanical nanny stuff is for the birds.
Interestingly, I read that Cisco systems decided to scratch their testing policies. Too many good people came up dirty. True or not I do not know. And perhaps the status has changed. Comments?
Re:Dear God Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dear God Yes (Score:5, Informative)
don't forget those Chinese immigrants getting high in their opium dens--as opposed to upstanding white folks who only use opium & alcohol (always a smart combination) tinctures.
really, i have yet to see any empirical evidence to back up the idea that before drug prohibition we had more drug-caused social issues than today. in fact, all the studies i've read about seem to point to the exact opposite. consider these points:
you don't have to be a drug-users or even like drug users to be against drug prohibition. it serves everyone's best interest for the government to adopt a sane/rational drug policy.
Re:Dear God Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm claiming that, like alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition caused far more social problems than it solved.
yes, opiates are physiologically addicted, and there were no doubt people who abused opiates and were addicted to opiates even back then. but when it is cheap, legal, and widely available, opiate dependence does not cause major social problems. this is demonstrated by the success of opiate maintenance programs in turning individuals with formerly problematic drug problems into productive & healthy members of society.
and just because opiate use was associated with upper-class lifestyles doesn't mean it can't be relatively cheap. the point is, prior to the Harrison Act people didn't go broke trying to support their opiate habits. heck, if you wanted to you could just grow your own poppies and make poppy tea yourself.
in fact, many well known figures in history were opiate users. for instance Benjamin Franklin and Edgar Allen Poe are both known to have been (recreational) opium users. that's not to say that narcotics with high abuse-potential shouldn't be regulated. in fact, if it were legal and regulated like alcohol and tobacco are, it'd probably cut back on all those unfortunate chippers who accidentally OD because they didn't know how strong their new batch of heroin was.
Re:Dear God Yes (Score:5, Informative)
first off, i never said IV heroin use was the same as ingesting opium orally. however, since you've brought it up, it should be noted that whether you smoke, insufflate, or ingest orally, the pharmacological mechanism of an opioid is the same. certain opiates like morphine and diacetylmorphine (heroin) are not suited to oral ingestion as they have very low oral bioavailability (somewhere around 10%, i think), but others like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and codeine do have high oral bioavailability.
really, aside from the initial rush (which lasts for 2-3 minutes max), injecting morphine/heroin/oxycodone/fentanyl feels exactly the same as if you ate it. however, it's more economical to inject morphine and heroin. and in my personal experience, most of the pill poppers who think that they're being smart by avoiding needles but have $200/day habits are not any better off than the heroin addicts with $200/day habits. of course, with IV use there are certain hygienic precautions you need to take. re-using needles and sharing needles are always bad. but aside from that, a lot of doctors who are closet IV morphine addicts are no worse off than pill poppers.
in regards to Benjamin Franklin, i wasn't being disingenuous, but thanks for the accusation anyway. if you look up Poor Richard's Almanac (here's a digital copy [franklinpapers.org]) you'll find lots of references to laudanum (opium & alcohol tincture), including as an ingredient to all sorts of home-made remedies as well as, interestingly enough, a bill or invoice sent to the Franklin estate including charges for "opium pills" and laudanum--and quite a lot of it. so perhaps he did use it recreationally or perhaps he didn't. but it's clear that Franklin was a regular user of opium at least as early as 1769 (the date of that bill), and was a proponent of opium use.
and if you want more sources that support Benjamin Franklin being a regular opium user:
Re:Dear God Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Specific quote regarding the dangers of overdose in acclimatised users:
There is no upper limit to the amount of tolerance that can occur in a heavy user. Several studies done in the 1920s gave users doses of 1,600â"1,800 mg of heroin, and no adverse effects were reported. Even for a non-user, the LD50 can be placed above 350 mg though some sources give a figure of between 75 and 375 mg for a 75 kg person.[30]
Re:Dear God Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If they have the optional power to do something specified, what kind of power do they have to do something that isn't specified?
By a straight reading of the content of the Constitution, no such power at all. Through constant incremental encroachment by degrees over the last 150-odd years, they've established themselves as having authority to do just about anything they like, constitution (particularly the 10th Amendment) be damned. Welcome to the frustration of libertarianism.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes and No... (Score:5, Insightful)
And as a non-drug user, I agree. There are many things that I personally would not do, but I would not ever dare insist that no one else be allowed to do them (obvious exceptions like drunken driving and serial killing not included).
The "war on drugs" is nothing more than a pissing contest of moralities. That, and it is a "cure" far worse than the disease it was meant to counter.
shrooms not acid (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll start off with this: I've used most drugs at least once and marijuana and quite a bit (used to work at a head shop), though now I'm straight edge for reasons that have nothing to do with my drug use.
I agree wholeheartedly with just one caveat, lets substitute Psilocibin mushrooms [wikipedia.org] (magic mushrooms) for LSD. It provides the same basic effect (there's nothing that happens on labratory made hallucenogens that doesn't happen on 'shrooms) but it is natural and controllable.
When using 'shrooms you always know they are pharmacologically safe (relatively speaking) but LSD, even if it was legalized, is too unstable to be used widely, IMHO.
I've known more than a few people who took too much acid and experienced permanent brain damage. With shrooms I have not seen any long term physiological problems.
so..."don't take the brown acid"
and for the love of God...legalize marijuana
Re:Elimitate upselling (Score:5, Insightful)
I admit that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about drug culture, but I always had the distinct impression that the people you bought marijuana from were not the type of people who would be selling other drugs. It's a fairly distinct culture where marijuana is generally sourced from a network of friends, not some dealer on the street corner who isn't going to risk his hide for something as unprofitable and unaddictive as marijuana.
Re:Elimitate upselling (Score:5, Insightful)
I like to believe that a lot of marijuana users, like myself, are mostly uninterested in hard drugs. I agree with your statement that it's not that bad, I've had far worse experiences with alcohol or over the counter medication.
I agree that it should be legalized, because really, if I want to hang out at my house and get high, that is my business and it's not like me doing that is putting the safety of the general populous at risk. I'm not out on the roads driving drunk, I'm not picking fights with people in bars, where is the harm in smoking a bowl or two and playing some video games, or listening to music, or watching a movie? There are far more productive things that the law could be doing for its people than locking up those of us who like to toke up.
Not to mention the additional waves that drug prohibition creates when it bleeds over into drug testing for jobs that really shouldn't require it. This causes people to not only be viewed as criminals for something that is incredibly common and harmless, but it uses the employer and the power of capital as just another long arm of the law.
Re:Elimitate upselling (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of my friends are very much the type that love smoking weed but are entirely uninterested in heroin or coke. I recently had a very good friend overdose on the former, and while that was entirely horrible, it did give me some perspective on the drug laws in our country. People die of alcohol poisoning. People die from shooting up too much or snorting bad coke. Terrible, horrible things, but I have never once heard anything like, "Yeah, man, they found his body this morning. Guess he just smoked too much weed last night."
Re:Elimitate upselling (Score:5, Funny)
I think that the worst that's ever happened to my pot-smoking friends is that they got very baked one day, and ran down to the 7-11 to buy taquitos. That's stimulating the economy. How can you possibly think that's bad?
Re:Elimitate upselling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Elimitate upselling (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any good salesman, a drug dealer will try to convert a marijuana user to use other drugs that turn a better profit. The good old upsell. Legalising marijuana would break that chain.
Bullshit. You've never bought any drugs at all, have you. Drug dealers aren't like a pharmacy with a big closet full of everything from weed to heroin. Drug dealers generally specialize in one drug, and occasionally get another one now and again. They don't have a product line that facilitates "upsell". Furthermore, I've never met a pot dealer who ever sold any of the so-called "hard drugs". Occasionally, they'd get some acid, or maybe some Ecstasy. No drug dealer has ever tried give me the hard sell on anything. You clearly got your drug education from the DEA and Nancy Reagan.
Bad idea for some drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
For stuff like antibiotics, allowing random people to decide what they can take when they want has a definite negative effect on the society at large.
It's a big enough problem getting patients to comply with complete antibiotics regimens as it is. Giving everyone the ability to just pop a few for a couple days when they cut themselves or have the flu or whatever is a recipe for massive, widespread increases in resistant bacteria.
Re:Bad idea for some drugs (Score:5, Informative)
While you're right that antibiotics shouldn't be used when not necessary, focusing on human use of antibiotics isn't that productive. More than 70% of antibiotics are used in animal feed. [wikipedia.org] Most cows in feedlots are fed massive amounts of antibiotics so that they don't die from being fed food they weren't evolved to digest. [uic.edu] A very quick way to massively reduce the amount of needless antibiotics used in the US is to regulate the beef industry.
Re:Regulation smarter than Prohibition (Score:5, Informative)
anybody who sells ... to a minor.
That's a good point, and a strong reason to legalize it all. Street drug dealers don't ask for ID, but a well-regulated place like a liquor store does. It's far easier for a kid to get illegal drugs right now than it is for them to get liquor, and that really needs to change.