Drugs and their legalization

[deyana]

It's a hot debate. Should drugs like Marijuana (Pot) be made legal? Are they legal in your country already? In Canada, and under supervision, Marijuana can be grown and sold for medicinal purposes. It helps in pain relief and some cancer suffers can find relief in it.

But should it be made legal for the general public or not? Do you think it should stay as it is, because one drug use can lead to another, perhaps more dangerous drug?

What are your opinions on this subject?

[Deleted]

Marijuana although illegal in India it had been there from time immemorial. It is a rather soft drug and it doesn't lead to physical and mental dependance which is ascociated with other narcotics.
The genetic make up of a person is primarily responsible for driving that person to intoxicants. The secondary triggers are things like feeling of insecurity, inadequateness etc. Whether one drug would lead to another is a difficult question. It depends on what the user is looking for. If some one is determined to lose oneself and walk the path to destruction he or she will hit the legal and widely available bottle.
Now, accepting that there will always be some people who would dig substances. Depending upon their psychological and genetic profile some will find the mental stimulation induced by Marijuna to be adequate and stay content with it. For the same reason there will be some who would crave for physical effects as well. Some would prefer oblivion over mental stimulation. They will find their drug of choice.
Now let us come to economics and practicality of the world we live in. If I were a pusher and could carry a limited quantity of substance with me how much money I would have made by selling a pocketful of grass? If I jack up my profit by raising the price many of my customers would go away because they are not staring at cold turkey. But suppose I dealt Smack and carried one pocketful of that stuff? When my customers start arriving desperate for a fix I raise the price. My customers won’t go away, they can’t. They would beg, borrow, steal and even kill while I count my money. So you see that it is not the occasional joints that lead the user to harder drugs, it is the black market and its players.
So, now coming back to the fact that there will always be many among us who would experiment with alternate substance let them have access to something legal and relatively safe rather than seek out a pusher in the black market.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure, I think Pot can make you dependent in some way, to a lesser degree than Coke or Speed or Heroin, but still.

should it be legalized? No, would be my answer. It's known to kill brain cells and affect judgment. Would you want someone high on Pot sitting behind a wheel of a car,driving down the street where your kids play?

[kerouac2]

Unlike hard drugs where people need a laboratory to make them, marijuana absolutely cannot be stopped since anybody can grow it. So it might as well be legal. If people want to buy it "ready-made" I am of course in favor of quality control, but you can't really regulate people's gardening skills.

Naturally,"intoxication" by drugs or alcohol must be regulated at all times when personal or public security is an issue.

[Deleted]

Grass was legal in India about two decades back. In fact it was sold thru Govt. owned shops and it costed a little more than the black market price!! It was some thing that poor people, daily wage earners, labourers, porters at railway station used for their daily relaxation. 1 US$ worth lasted a fortnight or more. Then came the NSPSD law that banned grass. Immediately the black market price shot up. For reasons stated in my earlier post the pushers squeezed the supply and started pushing the white powder. Now you see those miserable people on bitter cold nights huddled around a fire desperately sniffing the fumes from silver foils held on the flame by trembling hands, a deadly mix of chemicals. And believe me, it happened before my very eyes.
Now coming to road casualties, I live in a city where the roads are very wide and the drivers very reckless, in fact may be the worst in the world. Every three months or so we read about people being run over by speeding cars. In almost every case the fellow behind the wheel was drunk.
Please don't infer that I am advocationg use of marijuana, I am simply sharing what I have seen happening around me. Legislations do not often work.

[deyana]

I don't smoke, very rarely drink alcohol and have never smoked Pot. So really, I'm no expert in this. However I've known people who have been into it in a big way.

I actually don't think it should be legalized, it does affect judgment and that is the worry. When I was in India, I saw people growing and smoking it (in the village), it was done in social gatherings and to them it was not a big deal. Drinking and driving is very dangerous and very wrong, in fact anything that impairs driving should not be used.

[deyana]

Having said that, I do think it's okay to use Marijuana for pain relief, as in patients who are suffering from Cancer etc. How to keep it under control though? so that it can be grown for that purpose and not for trafficking.

[kerouac2]

And yet is it considered the bane of Yemen.

[Deleted]

Having grown up in SF during the 60's, I must admit to a libertarian streak as far as drugs are concerned. I have seen lives destroyed by them (my baby brother being one, alcohol) but have also seen them used responsibly with little ill effect. As is usually the case, there are as many stories as there are people and there is no one size fits all solution.
That being said, my countries 'War on Drugs' has been a dismal failure, begging the question, What next? I am for suspension of the criminalization of drug use and the recategorization of the drug 'problem' as a health issue. The stories of addicts waiting for well over a year to get into rehab programs is not a rarity. So even if they want to get assistance, it is not available. This must stop if we are to get a handle on the problem.
I suspect that it is inherently human to wish to enter altered states of conciousness as I know of no cultures past or present, that havent had some form of intoxicant/drug present. Therefore to simply 'just say no' is an unrealistic expectation.
In Arkansas, cannabis is illegal and the justice system can be very harsh. In California, cannabis is legal while under a doctors care.

[deyana]

CB, some very good points there. I wonder if alcohol doesn't destroy more lives then smoking of Pot? Also tobacco, how many people has that killed or make sick?

I suspect that it is inherently human to wish to enter altered states of conciousness as I know of no cultures past or present, that havent had some form of intoxicant/drug present. Therefore to simply 'just say no' is an unrealistic expectation.

Saying 'no' work only if kids learn it young enough, and are suitability put off the drug. But not always.

If you think of alcohol as a drug, for instance, just look at how many lives that has destroyed or ruined? How many health problems there are associated with excess drinking. And why do people drink to the point where it could kill them or leave them not in control of their senses? Because they want a way out? A way out of the life they live for whatever reason. And how does that explain why doctors are one of the worst drinkers around? Stress. Again looking for the altered state of consciousness. The reason for which differs, but results are (temporarily) the same.

[deyana]

The affects of cannabis. George Michael has been given an eight-week sentence for crashing his car while under the influence of cannabis.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11299938

[Deleted]

I think, in the case of men between the age of 15-->Whenever Drugs & alcohol are inversely co-related to sex. Excess of one or the other, leads to inability on the other I learnt that lesson early in life, and off went the drugs.

Booze on the other hand, he! he! he! is a placeholder for the latter

[deyana]

I'm such a goody two shoes nowadays.