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 Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:13 am
Note: I posted this in another guild first. I thought it may be a bit like preaching to the choir to post it here too but there is a bit of new news here with this new British study.The topic: Should we treat drug use as a medical problem or as a criminal problem?Well, yet another large study has come to the conclusion that criminalizing drug abuse is not the best way to fight drug addiction and crime. A recent study on British drug policies has come to a similar conclusion as an older Rand Corporation study did on U.S. drug policies and essentially the results show that the most effective and efficient way to combat drug abuse is through education and treatment rather than treating drug abusers as criminals and incarcerating them. First off, when illegal drugs are no longer illegal then the criminal enterprises that thrive off of the drug trade shrivel up and die. The risk associated with the selling and trafficking of drugs disappears and the price of the drugs falls dramatically. This may seem like a bad thing but in fact it removes the criminal element and cuts violence by orders of magnitude. Desperate drug addicts no longer have to resort to crime to pay for drugs that they couldn't afford when the criminal element and risk involved drove the prices sky high. Treating drug abusers and educating the public is also much much cheaper than seeking out criminals and jailing drug abusers. If we were to drop the pursuit of punishing drug abusers and treating them as criminals we would save enormous amounts of money. Most people may feel that drug abuse is morally objectionable but that doesn't mean punishment is the best way or the easiest way to get what we want. Best of all if we drop the criminalization of drug abuse we can restore a great measure of freedom to the citizenry. Right now "the war on drugs" is the government's biggest excuse to invade the average citizen's privacy. Some asset forfeiture laws punish citizens based on mere suspicion and forces those involved to sue the government in order to regain their rightful assets and property. By decriminalizing illegal drugs we could eliminate a large portion of government interference in people's lives by rendering it unnecessary.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:18 am
Drug use is neither a medical condition, nor is it a criminal act. It is just a choice. Similar to the choice you make about whether you want to smoke a cigarette, drink a soda, have a cup of coffee, or a even a beer. Drug addiction is just like any other addiction. It's not a disease, and it's not a crime, it's just something that happens to people sometimes.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 6:42 am
WobinA Drug use is neither a medical condition, nor is it a criminal act. It is just a choice. Similar to the choice you make about whether you want to smoke a cigarette, drink a soda, have a cup of coffee, or a even a beer. Drug addiction is just like any other addiction. It's not a disease, and it's not a crime, it's just something that happens to people sometimes. Drug use is not a medical condition but drug addiction is because of the chemical dependency built up in the body. The point here, however is not whether or not drug use is a choice because clearly it is but rather if that choice should be punishable by law. I would also like to point out that for some people the choice is to illegally obtain and use a drug or live in unbearable pain. How's that for a choice? Take the story of Richard Paey for example. A wheelchair bound man now serving a 25 year prison sentence for illegally obtaining perscription pain killers. How in the world is that considered justice? Whos rights has Richard Paey violated by obtaining these drugs? The Huffington Post Florida's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Richard Paey, a wheelchair-using father of three who is currently serving a 25-year mandatory prison sentence for taking his own pain medication. In doing so, the court let stand a decision which essentially claims that the courts have no role in checking the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government when an individual outcome is patently unjust.
Richard Paey-- who suffers both multiple sclerosis and from the aftermath of a disastrous and barbaric back surgery that resulted in multiple major malpractice judgments--now receives virtually twice as much morphine in prison than the equivalent in opioid medications for which he was convicted of forging prescriptions.
He had previously been given legitimate prescriptions for the same doses of pain medicine-- but made the mistake of moving to Florida from New Jersey, where he could not find a physician to treat his pain adequately. Each of his medical conditions alone can produce agony. Paey has described his pain as constantly feeling like his legs had been "dipped into a furnace."Full story here.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 6:54 am
This is yet more proof of one of my more popular complaints, that the U.S. does not have a justice system. Rather, we have a legal system, where the only consideration is the letter and technicalities of the law. If you purchased marijuana for medical purposes, the court verdit reads basically. You purchased an illegal substance, you're a crimminal, no if's, and's, or buts. Proceed with sentencing. The only consideration they have taken in is the law. Justice doesn't have anything to do with it.
*Curses the government in general for the umpteen-millionth time.*
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Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 2:03 pm
Strideo WobinA Drug use is neither a medical condition, nor is it a criminal act. It is just a choice. Similar to the choice you make about whether you want to smoke a cigarette, drink a soda, have a cup of coffee, or a even a beer. Drug addiction is just like any other addiction. It's not a disease, and it's not a crime, it's just something that happens to people sometimes. Drug use is not a medical condition but drug addiction is because of the chemical dependency built up in the body. Drug use is not a medical condition. Drug addiction is not a medical condition. Maybe you mean drug dependence. Addiction = psychological (unless otherwise stated i.e. "physical addiction"), dependence = physical (due to chemical imbalance).
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:17 am
...Unfortunately, a lot of the war on drug policies were created in the best interest of economics. Long term, this wasn't a very good choice, but short term, because that's how the government is always thinking, is a great idea.
Timber industries, for instance, would loose enormous amounts of business if hemp was used to replace paper production. Hemp is cheaper, easier to produce, faster to produce, and does not deteriorate as quickly as tree paper does. that being said, the government was influenced by this to regulate hemp production, and thus cannabis as a whole.
Similarly, the government has begun to implement it's moral standards on the rest of America, rather than what is explicitly in the constitution. That being said, if you want to regulate drugs, do the right way, make an amendment. Granted, we know criminalization isn't working, but that would be the right way to create such legislation. I would like to remind everyone that the pursuit of happiness is a constitutional right, and because drug users hurt no one else other than the user, it should be logical to assume that drug use, in it's entirety, is a right of the individual so long as they do not violate other people's rights in the process.
Of course, this economic policy is terrible because it hurts every consumer, who are the most fundamental part of the economic substructure. In the long term, if you're an Austrian or monetarist economist, (which, as libertarians, you should be) employment always gravitates back to equilibrium. Any jobs lost would be replaced. Innovation would create other uses for wood. And wood firms would have to find other ways to keep in business. Current industry has no competition because there is no similar product like it. With hemp, that all changes, and we create long term growth as a result. Competition is always good.
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 7:07 pm
I think that if abortion is legal, then so should drug usage. Abortions are supposedly legal because it is the mother's body, and she has the right to do with her body as she chooses. It should be the same way with drugs. If not, then American needs a lesson in logic.
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