Instead of a war on poverty .... - ...they gor a war on drug

[uth1984]

Fuck the war on drugs. Legalise it all. End the bourgois control of intoxicants. Smokin a joint or doing a pill is not a act of terrorism, but an act of resistence to the right-wing blind soberiety.

Can someone pass the Rizlas?

[pastradamus]

Your thinking just like the bourgois by putting all drugs into the same class comrade.
Im ok with marajuana.
But not with things like pills,opiumn,cocaine,barbituates ect....

[Pinko]

Legalising all drugs actually reduces the threat from harder drugs. If it is legalised, then health law will apply to them, a clean supply is assured. Most of the problems with heroin abuse comes from the crap that gets cut into it (brick dust, bleach powder, chalk, asprin are not uncommon padding agents, can you imagine shooting up on 40% bleach powder?). Also the probability of overdosing is reduced because the supply is of a consistant strength. Imagine injecting yourself with a 10% pure drug and then unwittingly comming across a 90% source, you will be dead in seconds.
One of Margret Thatcher's cheif aides was a heroin adict. He would shoot up four or five times a day when working in the Primeministers office. Noone ever noticed.
Ultimately, the revenue raised from taxing it will more than pay for the education and any treatment needed. The supply will be clean and of guaranteed strength. The government can afford mass purchases and therefore undercut the black market significantly, thereby reducing the instance of drug related crime. There will be no drug pushers to get the kids hooked, people will not need to associate with the unscrupulous black market types to get their fix and therefore not fall into their world.
The important bit will be restricting it to governmental supply, not liscensing capitalists to sell it.

There is more, but I wont bore you. I have only come around to this position within the last year of so (since I have stopped taking drugs myself). Having talked to many people in the rehabilitation sector (mostly voluntary workers) and the homless support sector (again mostly voluntary workers), most of them believe that full legalisation would reduce many of the associated problems with drugs. Their reasoning is sound and there is evidence to back them up. I spent a long time trying to argue against them and failed to do anything but come to their way of thinking. There is alot of misinformation and hysteria incucing propoganda around the use of illegal substances, this needs to end and an era of honesty needs to be ushered in.

[canikickit]

Absolutely Pinko.
It's the same as prostitution, the problem is not going away, so it makes more sense to regulate it.
This will reduce the problem. It will make it easier to educate. The money won't go to drug dealers it will go back into the educationn and aid.

Also, in the Netherlands drugs users are treated as people who are sick, not as hardened criminals, this reduces the prison population significantly.

[Anonymous]

What people put in their bodies is no business of the government. We should legalize most drugs and allow tobacco and pharmecutical companies to sell them.

Getting rid of the "sin" tax is also a good idea.

[Anonymous]

I agree, legalisation will ensure quality control and also provide many jobs in the srug groing industry, itll also drive down the price immensley making everyone happy

:cool:

[Nateddi]

drugs are bad

btw, there is no such thing as the war on drugs. if the u.s. wanted to wipe out drug trafficking, they have more than enough capacity to do it. i support military death penalty on drug dealers, although i am a bit sympathetic on users, i would leave it as a misdemeanor and confiscation without jailing (for light drugs).

@uth 1984

the bourgeoisie would love to profit by turning addicts into easy money, the same way the ruthless dealers profit from poor addicts. dark capitalist supports such moves because it is greatly profitable. this is why the tobacco industry is always critisized, they push products on children so they have addicts to make profit off of. the fact that you so-called leftists support such bullshit ideas as legal drugs is close to the point of idiocy.

(Edited by Nateddi at 10:08 pm on Sep. 10, 2002)

[Conghaileach]

If drugs are legalised, do you really think that the money the Goverment makes by taxing it will be pumped back into the Health service to deal with the rocketing increase in health and social problems the legalisation will create?

[j]

Nateddi-I don't know why you support the death penalty for drug dealers. You seem to be failing to acknowledge WHY someone would deal drugs in the first place. The majority of drug dealers deal because it is highly profitable business and for many is the only way they can survive in this capitalist economy. They found their business--drugs.

If you give people true opportunity and equality than you will reduce the number of people that turn to dealing drugs to survive.

I don't support dealing drugs in anyway but you gotta understand the reasons that people turn to it.

j

[new democracy]

Quote: from j on 10:16 pm on Sep. 10, 2002
Nateddi-I don't know why you support the death penalty for drug dealers. You seem to be failing to acknowledge WHY someone would deal drugs in the first place. The majority of drug dealers deal because it is highly profitable business and for many is the only way they can survive in this capitalist economy. They found their business--drugs.

If you give people true opportunity and equality than you will reduce the number of people that turn to dealing drugs to survive.

I don't support dealing drugs in anyway but you gotta understand the reasons that people turn to it.

j

couldn't agree with you more. i saw a movie about poor farmers in bolivia, that the government screwed them so they start growing drugs in their fildes because that's the only thing that they could do for living because the government don't care about them. they said that if they had a choice, they would stop making drugs.

[Nateddi]

j,

most drug dealers are well off and profit from the addiction of the users. by dealers i implied those involved in the drug ring and trafficking.

[Moskitto]

I was told by someone how much the cigarrette dealers earn a day at the school on the over side of town. 50p a cigarette, a box costs £2.50 that's 12p a cigarette, they make 38p a cigarrette, how many does the average 14 year old kid smoke? 2 or 3? that's £1.16 a student, then how many of them are there buying them? well, this is the dodgy school where people trade canabis as well so say 50, that's £58.00 a day.

[Chasovoy]

"Instead a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me"

Didn't 2Pac have a line like that in one of his songs?

[canikickit]

"Instead a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me"
He had a line exactly like that.


btw, there is no such thing as the war on drugs. if the u.s. wanted to wipe out drug trafficking, they have more than enough capacity to do it.

Bullshit, man. The US tried to get rid of the Cocaine industry by eliminating Pablo Escobar, but it soon became a campaign simply against Escobar. Meanwhile the other cartels were doing a roaring trade. The idea of eliminating drugs smuggling, is as ridiculous as eliminating terrorism. Both will be around for ever and ever and ever, amen.

[Anonymous]

Quote: from Moskitto on 10:45 pm on Sep. 10, 2002
I was told by someone how much the cigarrette dealers earn a day at the school on the over side of town. 50p a cigarette, a box costs £2.50 that's 12p a cigarette, they make 38p a cigarrette, how many does the average 14 year old kid smoke? 2 or 3? that's £1.16 a student, then how many of them are there buying them? well, this is the dodgy school where people trade canabis as well so say 50, that's £58.00 a day.




Shit! You could get them for 20p at my school.

Legalisation would mean thatdrug dealers wouldbecome less shady and subject to quality control. They would make a tiny proportion of the money they make now because drugs would be much more widely available therefore they would have to improvethier product to compete. Health warnings would have to be broadcasted but overall i think it would save many more lives than it destroyed

[uth1984]

The war on drugs is real. Reagan first said it, that the full use of the USA army would be used to crush drug brons. The cot of the war on drugs runs into the billions, and make no mistake, they govt want to win the war. But they can't. Its a fundamental human right to do drugs, and nothing can stop the people from getting completely wankered.

Nattedi. The war on drugs is an extension of the Bourgois control of intoxicants. It is a bourgois notion that one man has the power to prevent 100 from doing what they want by virtue of the fact that he is older.

All drugs shuld be legalised for the simple nfact that this would reduce harm to all: inniduals, users, families and wider society. The most widely "evil" drug is Heroin. However, it has no dangerous qualities, aprt from constipation and addiction. The dangers of infection or overdose are a result of its illegality. The same goes for Ecstacy, cocaine.

The scientific principles of Marxism, of dialectal materialism, must be taken to the study of intoxication. It is not enough to say "DRUGS ARE BAD." We must question in what ways, and why.

As with everthing else a Pluralist Socialist answer to the drugs is the only answer.