Today in the U.S., doing illegal drugs, such as Cannabis, Meth-amphetamine, or Cocaine will result in a long jail sentence that doesn't cure your addiction. Not only is your addiction not cured, you are serving time for doing something that hurt nobody else: you are both the victim and the perpetrator.

Many of these drugs aren't even that bad: Meth as a drug is a lot better than Alcohol. Many could help stimulate the economies of states and countries, and when needle injected, these don't harm people on the outside like second hand smoke from cigarettes does.

So should these drugs be illegal? Should you serve time for these drugs? Should the real punishment be rehabilitation 100% of the time? What do you think? (My opinion after the break)

I think they should stay illegal since not only can it kill you, but if you die it has a huge impact on your loved ones. Sure it's not physical pain, but it's emotional pain and that can be even worse. Can you imagine losing someone you love to drugs?

They should be legalized, but highly regulated. As you said, the government can easily make large profits off of it, and they're not nearly as dangerous as "legal" drugs.

Lux: Every death causes emotional impact. Should we outlaw everything that kills you, like driving?

No drug has a 100 percent chance of killing the user. Many, like heroin and cocaine, are highly addictive and cause a lot of physical harm and very often eventually lead to the user's death, but cannabis is less harmful and less addictive than tobacco and alcohol, so logically it should be legalized if tobacco and alcohol are legal. There is the gateway drug theory, though, which creates a concern for many.
soyeah. :3

At the very least, decriminalize marijuana nationwide.

As for others, I am not so sure right now. Maybe lessen restrictions on them but not as much as marijuana.

While I'm all for decriminalization of at the very least Marijuana, I have a problem with what you said, Freeze.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreezeWarp Meth as a drug is a lot better than Alcohol.

yeah, i also heard the tobacco companies put something in the tobacco that makes addictive, I guess they just wanna kill us all in a very slow pace. shouldn't tobacco be outlawed if its addictive then...

ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS END UP MAKING YOU FEEL TERRIBLE AND YOU WISH YOU COULD STOP BUT YOU CAN'T BECAUSE YOU FORGOT THEIR ADDICTIVE SO YOU EITHER HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE PAINS OF REHAB OR DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH.
Bam.

I think drugs should be modified, and packaged and regulated like how tobacco are.
If drugs are outlawed, people will show disrespect to the laws by breaking them, which causes crime.

If drug was made, substances to assist quiting should also be made.

Even if it's legal, I will never do it.

http://mindprod.com/humanrights/marijuana.html

Both legal and illegal drugs are harmful enough to kill you. Here are scientific analysis taken from Biology books:

- Anabloic steroids are legal drugs taken for muscle growth. Although they are normally taken by sportsmen, yet they have many harmful side-effects. If a man takes them, the his aggression is going to increase. These drugs also cause impotence, baldness, kidney and liver damage and the development of breast! Remember that any kind of kidney or liver damage can be fatal. If a woman takes these drugs, then the woman might get a development of male features; facial and body hair and irregular periods, which is obviously crazy.

- Caffeine is a legal drug that we all intake when we drink coffee. Although its side-effects need a lot of time to appear, yet it is noticed alter on that these side-effects are harmful. The most dangerous thing that it causes your heart to pump faster, increasing your blood pressure. I find no reason to explain how harmful the increase of blood pressure is, but simply, it can be fatal. Of course, it also increases aggression and panic.

- Nicotine is found in tobacco. It also increase the blood pressure and the rate of the heart pump. It is addictive.

- Alcohol has got a lot of negative effects, but the most serious ones are that alcohol poisons the liver if drank a lot. If the liver gets damaged, you are dead. The other effect is that if a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, there is a very high chance that the fetus will be damaged.

Some drugs are stated to be medical drugs, and are important in certain occasions, yet they have some dangerous aspects if are misused, so they are highly censored.

Now illegal drugs are feared the most because they are very highly addictive. Apart from that, these drugs can cause some kind of paralysis to the nervous system; his actions will become very slow. They also highly increase the speed of the heart and make he blood vessels narrower, increasing the blood pressure and also providing a risk of having the heart exhausted, causing a heart attack. Such drugs can also cause brain clot.

As you can see, the harm of the illegal drugs are far worse from the legal ones, therefore, they should be kept illegal. However, the ones who are on drugs must not be kept in jail. That isn't a good solution at all. These takers must be sent to the hospital to take suitable treatment and then let them take some kind of punishment that will convince them not to take drugs anymore. Honestly, the ones who should be sentenced to jail for a very long time are the ones who sell drugs, as these are the people who are harming the others, and not themselves.

... Errrr... don't do drugs...

(Hopefully you understand my answer)

Just so you know; in the US, caffeine is only legal if it's in small amounts mixed with another food. Pure caffeine is illegal, due to the possibility of it giving heart attacks and other factors.

Personally, I think that drugs should be legal. What real right do I have to say what people can and cannot do to themselves?

That is true, but we aren't discussing on how to ban drugs, as they are already banned. The whole discussion is that should these drugs be banned. Some drugs are legal, and people are working with them; medical drugs, alcohol, coffee, tobacco, etc. Personally, I believe that everything has got a use even if it is harmful. Although drugs are harmful, yet we have discovered some uses. Although caffeine is harmful to the heart, yet coffee is good to the nervous system. This means that while using legal drugs, we need to be careful and not overuse it. This is also applied with medical drugs. There is no pharmacy in the world that would sell a medical drug without a doctor's consultation, preventing people from buying these drugs even when they aren't sick. Research proved that alcohol is useful to the body, mainly the liver, but in a very little amount; 0.03%. Naturally, alcohol is found in most kinds of vegetables and fruits; lettuce, and in a very little amount as well. If we just eat vegetables and fruits normally, our body will be gaining the right amount of alcohol needed, making the alcohol we drink harmful, especially to the liver. Tobacco is just the same. Now people are working on tobacco, and it is in a good progress. I have noticed that in these couple of years, the society looks at smokers in a way that gives the smoker the impression that he is an outcast. I am sure that such looks will decrease the amount of new smokers and help in ceasing the amount of smokers generally. This has been happening with drugs decades ago. Even before some drugs became illegal, the society used to kick drug-dealers from it, thus decreasing the amount of the dealers. When the number of the dealers decreased, and there was a general hate to drugs, the governments were able to ban these drugs. This is what is going to happen to tobacco after nearly a decade or hopefully, few years.

Drugs should be regulated with less grounds in fear. The bulk of drugdealing and distribution isn't really impacted by extra laws about how hospitals or pharmacies should have more control over their medicine, since these drugs are made mostly in private laboratories that aren't even known to exist. Law by construction can only regulate that which it knows exists, and at the very most set up more checkpoints, and these points in turn are also placed at known locations.

I once saw a documentary on Discovery about a man ill with parkinson's doing... I forget what it was, possibly meth, and having periods of wellbeing that no known drug could parallel. While it may be just one case of a person who happens to respond that way to it, more research should be done on these drugs. It is often overlooked how the fact that these drugs trigger reactions that no conventional substances can, this also reflects the potential of a substance that can do things no other medicine can.

Drugs as medicine and research should be less of a taboo. Will that increase drug abuse? Possibly. slightly. With the vast majority of abusers getting their shot from sources specialized in drug-dealing, I don't believe that would be the real problem.

On the topic of punishment, there are cases in which non-rehab punishment is nothing more than a deterrent. Oftentimes an addicted person will not care about the fine or jailtime they get, it won't be the first thing on their mind, as their more immediate concern is the loss of access to their substance. For people who don't distribute drugs as a job, punishment should be more lax than it is, though I can't say it should be zero. These punishments are still effective on people who consume the drug and aren't yet fully addicted to it, as the punishment will be a stronger deterrent. This should be taken into account.

I agree that as it stands, drug regulation should have a few reforms that focus less on the immidiate obvious, and more on practicality, and would ultimately make them more effective. And part of these reforms should indeed include laxness in certain areas, particularly in pharmaceutical and research fields.

I think marijuana should be legalized. Just by making it legal won't make everyone want it, since it already a lot of reputation surrounding it. I Think that if the government fears that someone is making too much profit by selling marijuana that this person grows on its greenhouse, it should legalize it and sell it. With specific places to use it, like parks or marijuana cafes, like they have in Amsterdam.

Now, about cocaine, meth, and the others...I don't think it's a good idea. I really don't know about meth, but depending on the dose, cocaine and heroine can make a person aggressive and abusive, like alcohol. So it can put others in danger. And the govermnent would eventually spend a lot with treatment and security...and that's not good. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I've never heard of a overdose case of marijuana, or that someone attacked another person after smoking.

Drugs of all kinds should be legalized. Marijuana doesn't have any huge medical problems associated with us, unless you already have past problems with schizophrenia (this includes family history). It also helps with our economic situation, and the government can regulate it so it does not have cocaine or anything mixed with it. As for the others, sweden (or Switzerland, can't remember which) has heroine legalized, and they have the least problem with it in the world. They set up clinics that give clean needles and regulate how much they get. This keeps IV transferred diseases at a minimum, and helps ween them off of it.

Also, we should not be filling up our prisons and jails with people who have committed non-violent drug crimes. That does not help the individual at all, and wastes tax dollars.

The thing is, the nation would benefit from the legalization of some drugs. Others, however, just shouldn't ever be legalized.

There's a really good Cracked article about this

Maijuana should be legalized as it has medical use. Cocaine and others have no medical use, thus having no reason to be legalized.

Did anyone even bother to read the Cracked article I linked?

I did, if it makes you feel any better.

edit: of course I did not read it until after the hemp post I made. Also, it made a lot of sense. So smarten up pro legalization people!

Medical marijuana does have its uses, but the point was that a lot of people back it so that they can get it. There are a lot of people who abuse it by claiming nausea and other problems.

Actually, elaine, I do agree with medicinal marijuana. I just think it should be in the responsible eye of the hospital. Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where we can trust people to take a hallucinogen home and be responsible with it.

No drugs shouldn't be legalized. They're illegal. It just causes trouble. People will over use it.

Drugs should be legalized only for medial use

I do agree to an extent that some drugs should be legalized, like Marijuana. But with what people do for drugs and what people put in them, the risks far outweigh the benefits. But in the judicial system, the punishment, in my opinion, should be rehab instead of jail because once they get out, they'll just go and do it again, and the cycle will start all over again.

I suppose marijuana is 0kay, but anything you can OD on that is already illegal should stay illegal.

I got some food for you guys: What seems to be the attitude towards drugs might be best seen through a recent bill that passed the house judiciary committee.

Explaining the effects of what the bill can do...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1..._n_998993.html

The text of the bill...
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112hr313.pdf

The reasons why it was made is because it closes a "loophole" that allows for others to plan drug traffic in the USA. However, it also allows for police to arrest you for planning to do drugs in nations where they are legal. This bill sure angered the readers at the Huffington Post, that's for sure. This is a nasty bill, and it seems to be a step towards making our laws international for drugs.

Meanwhile, California is being sought after by the feds for their medical MJ stuff.