Legalize street drugs???
 

Is legalizing street drugs an option? If so which ones?

A few points for starters
1)Drug war is costing tax payers tons of money.
2)Drug war creates a huge black market network for organized crime to flourish.
3)Drug war doesn't seem to work leaving illegal drugs readily available for minors
4)Drug war makes criminals out of addicts instead of treating them more like alcoholics.

You can clearly tell how I lean on this issue. I want to hear others comments on what should be done. If so which drugs? Clearly pot seems pretty harmless.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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Is legalizing street drugs an option? If so which ones?

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Yes; All

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

5)Drug war radically drives up the cost of drugs, which for many people eats up a huge chunk of their money for no reason.
6)Drug war uses propaganda and outright lies to children about the realities of drugs, making their decision making skills later on much worse.
7)Drug war is completely unwinnable.
8)Drug war leads to horrendously poor levels of quality in the products; consumers have very little assurance of the quality of what they're purchasing, which can be dangerous.
9)Drug war creates a huge taboo around drugs and the scarcity of the black market forces decisions that are irrational with regards to drug use. (i.e., "omg, so-and-so has acid!? We gotta do it, acid never comes around!")
10)Worst of all, it makes it hard for people to get fun drugs.

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Clearly pot seems pretty harmless.

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It is. Alcohol is a thousand times more dangerous to an individual and to society.

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If so which drugs?

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All. Legalizing heroin does not mean that all of a sudden everyone is going to become a junkie.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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5)Drug war radically drives up the cost of drugs, which for many people eats up a huge chunk of their money for no reason.
6)Drug war uses propaganda and outright lies to children about the realities of drugs, making their decision making skills later on much worse.
7)Drug war is completely unwinnable.
8)Drug war leads to horrendously poor levels of quality in the products; consumers have very little assurance of the quality of what they're purchasing, which can be dangerous.
9)Drug war creates a huge taboo around drugs and the scarcity of the black market forces decisions that are irrational with regards to drug use. (i.e., "omg, so-and-so has acid!? We gotta do it, acid never comes around!")
10)Worst of all, it makes it hard for people to get fun drugs.

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You forgot the worst:

11)The Drug War creates organized crime and drives up the rate of violent crimes to ridiculous levels.
12)The government likes to claim that buying drugs supports terrorism, but if their assertions are true (unlikely), it's actually the Drug War that's supporting terrorism by keeping the profits away from legitimate American businesses and in the hands of criminals.

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All. Legalizing heroin does not mean that all of a sudden everyone is going to become a junkie.

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And even if you believe that government needs to stop/help these people, illegality is a terribly ineffective way to do it. Take the profits away from organized crime, stop making these people's lives worse by puttin them in jail and simply provide treatment and education.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

13) Less prison space needed
14) Fewer innocent people killed/terrorized by erroneous SWAT team raids.
15) Less stupid supreme court rulings stealing more freedoms. (The cops can come on my property and inspecy my garbage can contents? WTF???)

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

Here is another problem I have observed. Some people who don't smoke pot don't like to be around it and some people who only smoke pot don't like to be around cokeheads or heroin ect(partially because it is illegal but more so because certain stigmas are attached). Well there is this phenomenon that the more heavily you get into hard drugs you surround yourself by more and more addicts. It becomes harder and harder for the addict to quit because the drug use has alienated him/her from non addict friends and surrounded him/her with addicts. This is just an observation of what I have seen happen to friends of mine.
Edit: I think legalization would help the stigma attached but not completely?

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

good addition to aid discussion:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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good addition to aid discussion:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

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I didn't think that chart looked at all viable

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

[ QUOTE ]
good addition to aid discussion:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

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The chart claims that pot is more dangerous than ecstacy. I stopped taking it seriously after I saw that.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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Clearly pot seems pretty harmless.

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It is. Alcohol is a thousand times more dangerous to an individual and to society.

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Your alcohol comment is dead on, but pot is far from harmless. While it is a fact that the chronic is non-toxic, it is a mistake to consider pot harmless. It's a myth.

That being said, I am in favor of all drugs being legal and for the banning of all drug advertising, including current over-the-counter drugs.

You can't make prescription medication available to the average idiot who will believe everything they see on TV.

If you're going to take something (other than for fun), a doctor should be telling you to, not an ad rep and a couple actors.

And when these recreational drugs are legal, the Gov't should not license or privatize manufacture and sales. Let the Gov't make all the cash associated with it and wave goodbye to ever paying income tax again.

How's that for stimulating the economy?

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

I guess someone should take the anti-drug position here. While I think that pot should be legalized, I'm not in favor of legalizing Cocaine or Heroin.

Cocaine and Heroin are extremely dangerous drugs that kill hundreds or thousands of people a year. People who get addicted to these drugs are huge burdens on society. The effect of increasing the cost of these drugs is a social good because the artifically higher cost deters people from using them. While everyone won't become junkies when heroin becomes legal, more people will and we have to stop that. We should fight these drugs with every tool we have: both treatment and criminalization.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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5)Drug war radically drives up the cost of drugs, which for many people eats up a huge chunk of their money for no reason.


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And considering that cocaine costs less today than it did 20 years ago (despite billions spend 'fighting' it), with the price of everything else in the world increasing 100%-400% over that same period (with no war agaist them), it is really absurd to even suggest prohibitioin is the way to go.

Mabye if we spend 100 gazillion dollars fighting it, it will cost a few pennies...lol

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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Your alcohol comment is dead on, but pot is far from harmless. While it is a fact that the chronic is non-toxic, it is a mistake to consider pot harmless. It's a myth.

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The only thing I've heard with regards to possible harm from pot is that it can inhibit brain cell development in people under 18. I have no idea whether that's true or not and I don't have the study on hand. But other than that, the drug is just not toxic. It's safe.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The chart claims that pot is more dangerous than ecstacy. I stopped taking it seriously after I saw that.


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Thats why that chart is BS. It doesn't take much into consideration. Yeah if you do them both once a month pot is more dangerous, but no one ever dies from pot and extacy kills at a decent rate due to dehydration, depression, and over hydration. This isn't even considering the effects of the drugs extacy is commonly cut with or long term effects of abuse.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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Cocaine and Heroin are extremely dangerous drugs that kill hundreds or thousands of people a year.


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Heroin is very safe to the human body.

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The effect of increasing the cost of these drugs is a social good because the artifically higher cost deters people from using them.



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Cocaine is cheaper today than it was 20 years ago. Everything else under the sun rose in price 100% or more, cocaine despite the drug war , is cheaper .

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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People who get addicted to these drugs are huge burdens on society. The effect of increasing the cost of these drugs is a social good because the artifically higher cost deters people from using them.

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There's a problem with this reasoning. Think about why a heroin addict is a burden on society. You can immediately rule out the intoxicating effects of heroin, because no heroin addict is going to shoot up and then go beat his wife or get into a fight. People who are high on heroin are bedridden and docile, and those withdrawing are just sickly; someone using heroin simply does not create a social threat.

So why are heroin addicts linked with violent crime (theft, extortion, prostitution if you count that)? Because of the artificially high costs of junk. Heroin is [censored] expensive and it is entirely because of the drug war, and people must go to great lengths to support their addiction. Legalize and make it cheaper, and the junkies will be able to afford it without having to resort to antisocial activity. The high cost of heroin creates the crime.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The only thing I've heard with regards to possible harm from pot is that it can inhibit brain cell development in people under 18. I have no idea whether that's true or not and I don't have the study on hand. But other than that, the drug is just not toxic. It's safe.

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I guess if you've never heard of it, then it can't possibly be true?

Last 10 or so years have provided some pretty hefty advances in nuclear imaging technology. More about the effects of drugs on the brain has been learned in that time than in all of previous medical history. Psychotropics (including pot) can have a permanent negative effect on brain chemistry. The catch is like with all else, everyone is different. It is not known how much pot it takes to damage my brain as opposed to damaging yours.

There is no "safe" drug.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

Doesnt smoking pot give you cancer? Or at least it would if you were smoking it in a joint with some tabacco.

I think the point of E being rated so low is that around half a million people in britain take E on the weekend. It isnt so much E that kills, its the stuff its cut with, or the user not being knowledgable enough to know what to do whils on it (so they dehydrate etc).

E also has no chemical adictive properties (unlike heroin, cocaine and coffee).

It is quite likely there is little research into the long term effects, in comparison to weed anyway.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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I think the point of E being rated so low is that around half a million people in britain take E on the weekend. It isnt so much E that kills, its the stuff its cut with, or the user not being knowledgable enough to know what to do whils on it (so they dehydrate etc).

E also has no chemical adictive properties (unlike heroin, cocaine and coffee).

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I know of people who died because they drank too much water and E slows the body's ability to absorb water down.

E doesn't have a addictive chemical such as caffeine but it releases seratonin which makes you feel pleasure releases dopamine and depletes seratonin making you depressed. This makes it extremely addictive if done often. I am not trying to preach against E just saying don't do it all the time.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The only thing I've heard with regards to possible harm from pot is that it can inhibit brain cell development in people under 18. I have no idea whether that's true or not and I don't have the study on hand. But other than that, the drug is just not toxic. It's safe.

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I guess if you've never heard of it, then it can't possibly be true?

Last 10 or so years have provided some pretty hefty advances in nuclear imaging technology. More about the effects of drugs on the brain has been learned in that time than in all of previous medical history. Psychotropics (including pot) can have a permanent negative effect on brain chemistry. The catch is like with all else, everyone is different. It is not known how much pot it takes to damage my brain as opposed to damaging yours.

There is no "safe" drug.

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Is there a 'safe' car?
What about a 'safe' place to live?
What about a 'safe' place to swim, or boat?
what about a 'safe' cheese?
A 'safe' relationship?
A 'safe' mountain to climb, or bike path to travel?

Life is risk. We do not need silly people in washington d.c. to micro manage our lives and choices. And we certainly don't need to pay them to do it.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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I think the point of E being rated so low is that around half a million people in britain take E on the weekend. It isnt so much E that kills, its the stuff its cut with, or the user not being knowledgable enough to know what to do whils on it (so they dehydrate etc).

E also has no chemical adictive properties (unlike heroin, cocaine and coffee).

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I know of people who died because they drank too much water and E slows the body's ability to absorb water down.

E doesn't have a addictive chemical such as caffeine but it releases seratonin which makes you feel pleasure releases dopamine and depletes seratonin making you depressed. This makes it extremely addictive if done often. I am not trying to preach against E just saying don't do it all the time.

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I know more people who have died in war than you know who have died from E. If the object is to 'save lives' there is no question where to start.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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I think the point of E being rated so low is that around half a million people in britain take E on the weekend. It isnt so much E that kills, its the stuff its cut with, or the user not being knowledgable enough to know what to do whils on it (so they dehydrate etc).

E also has no chemical adictive properties (unlike heroin, cocaine and coffee).

[/ QUOTE ]

I know of people who died because they drank too much water and E slows the body's ability to absorb water down.

E doesn't have a addictive chemical such as caffeine but it releases seratonin which makes you feel pleasure releases dopamine and depletes seratonin making you depressed. This makes it extremely addictive if done often. I am not trying to preach against E just saying don't do it all the time.

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I know more people who have died in war than you know who have died from E. If the object is to 'save lives' there is no question where to start.

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Whoa homie I am on your side. Given the choice I would legalize everything. I just wanted to get the facts straight.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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Is there a 'safe' car?
What about a 'safe' place to live?
What about a 'safe' place to swim, or boat?
what about a 'safe' cheese?
A 'safe' relationship?
A 'safe' mountain to climb, or bike path to travel?

Life is risk. We do not need silly people in washington d.c. to micro manage our lives and choices. And we certainly don't need to pay them to do it.

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I agree that life is risk, but I have a reasonable expectation of safety when I drive my car. I don't expect to get into an accident.

There is little reasonable expectation of safety when using a recreational drug. Users should be aware that they are causing harm in using a toxic/harmful substance.

I will admit that low, occaisional uses are relatively safe. I'm speaking more in terms of chronic, long-term abuse. Getting stoned all-day, every day for years is when the damage occurs. It's not likely anyone will damage their brain on one bowl. But with each sucessive bowl, the odds go up.

In my car, I'm no more likely to get into an accident the first time I drive than the 10,000th time, all else being equal (not factoring experience).

With drugs, including alcohol, your next use is exponentially more likely to cause harm than your last.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

So what if it does damages the brain after years and years. If I want to damage my brain and not hurt anyone in doing so, isn't that my perogative?

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

Legalizing drugs is a non-starter.
The high profits generated by drug trade are eventually being re-invested in the economy.
If the flow of drug-generated investments will decrease due to legalization, the economy will experience a very painful "withdrawal"

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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I guess someone should take the anti-drug position here. While I think that pot should be legalized, I'm not in favor of legalizing Cocaine or Heroin.

Cocaine and Heroin are extremely dangerous drugs that kill hundreds or thousands of people a year. People who get addicted to these drugs are huge burdens on society. The effect of increasing the cost of these drugs is a social good because the artifically higher cost deters people from using them. While everyone won't become junkies when heroin becomes legal, more people will and we have to stop that. We should fight these drugs with every tool we have: both treatment and criminalization.

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This post displays a tremendous amount of ingnorance and faulty logic. The cost of drugs has absolutely no deterent effect on an addict's desire to use. The idea that access to legal and cheap narcotics would turn "most" people into addicts is preposterous. Addiction is a disease, that has both a physiological and psychological component, internal to the addict. External factors such as access to and cost of supply have no effect on rates of addiction within the population.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

Yeah, the high cost of drugs doesn't do anything to the user but it sure does give incentive to the dealer.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

The Drug War is easily the most repugnant domestic policy that our government pursues. It's more like a war on the black underclass. The government has created a system with policies like the minimum wage, welfare, and the withholding tax of social security, that disincentivizes legal employment and incentivizes black market employment. And when members of the black underclass rationally decide to sell drugs rather than take a minimum wage job that is taxed, precludes them from getting welfare, and requires a significant amount of productivity from day 1, our government persecutes them.

And in persecuting the breadwinners of the black underclass, the government has created even more disgusting consequences. They've completely disincentivized the formation of stable families as well as the impetus to sustain wealth over generations. Let me explain. When the expectation of the breadwinners is that they will be dead or in jail within ten years (dead, because without access to the court system disputes are resolved with violence; and jail, for obvious reasons,) they rationally choose high time-preference behavior over low-time preference behavior. Why save for retirement or for your kid's college fund when you'll be dead or in jail? It is completely rational for these breadwinners to spend extravagantly to enjoy the freedom they have while they have it.

This leads to every black generation having to start from scratch, with no accumulated wealth to build on. Think about how the white middle and upper class became wealthy - earlier generations had the freedom to make money unimpeded by outside forces, and they did so and passed on wealth to their progeny, who used the accumulated wealth to make even more money and so on and so forth. Our government, with its "liberal" and paternalistic policies, has left the black underclass in stasis, excluding them from the economic growth that the rest of us enjoy.

[censored] the costs for a second. Look at the effects. In communities like East St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore...everywhere we can see the wreckage of the drug war around us.

It has to stop.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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Cocaine and Heroin are extremely dangerous drugs that kill hundreds or thousands of people a year.

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Alcohol is an extremely dangerous drug that kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The catch is like with all else, everyone is different. It is not known how much pot it takes to damage my brain as opposed to damaging yours.

There is no "safe" drug.

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If you eat enough carrots, they will have a toxic effect. The effect will be more damaging to some than others. There is no "safe" food.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The cost of drugs has absolutely no deterent effect on an addict's desire to use.

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I really disagree with this. However, addictive drugs have an extremely elastic demand, and people will go to much greater lengths to acquire them than they would if, say, twinkies were sold on the black market for ten times what they'd cost in a free market.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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With drugs, including alcohol, your next use is exponentially more likely to cause harm than your last.

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False. Tolerance.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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With drugs, including alcohol, your next use is exponentially more likely to cause harm than your last.

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False. Tolerance.

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Tolerance is an indication of liver damage. It's also an indicator of the disease of alcoholism. True.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

1. Everyone saying that the law enforcement effort is causing lower prices is being silly. Every time a pot shipment is seized or someone is deterred from growing coca, the supply is reduced. This leads to higher prices. As we like to say around here, correlation != causation

2. I distinguish Cocaine from alcohol because the negative effects of cocaine are much more inherent in its use than Alcohol. Alcohol kills people mostlly through drunk driving or domestic abuse. We have laws against both of those actions and I support those laws. Issues involved with Cocaine use include crack babies and overdoses. I'm pretty sure that more people are killed by drug overdoses than alcohol overdoses despite the fact that alcohol is much more widely used. I'm sure bkholdem can attest that many of the homeless people he lived with were addicts. How many of those people could we save if we could keep them from getting drugs?

3. Willmagic is right that there are negative externalities of the Drug War, but they exist for mere drug use too. Families are torn apart by junkies. Property is stolen. While the drug war raises prices, I'm not sure that stealing would end if we legalized. Junkies will still need to get a fix and they will still have trouble getting a job (another negative externality) regardless of the price. While less stuff might get stolen, I doubt it would stop.

4. While the threat of incarceration is one way that the drug war discourages drug use, another way it does it is the accompanying social stigma. I like to consider myself a law abiding person. Even if I could be 100% I wouldn't be caught, I wouldn't try coke because I believe its wrong. This belief was given to me by the government. The stigma attached to being a drug user is useful in preventing people from destroying their lives with drugs.

5. The reason that addictive drugs need to be particulary closely watched is because their addictive properties remove the ability to choose to use them. The argument in favor of legalization is that you should be free to inject whatever you want into your body. Once you're hooked, the drug takes that choice away from you.

6. Girchuck, the idea that the government looks at the economic benefit of drugs is silly. Drug use would expand rapidly if it was legalized. Also, if they were in it for the money, wouldn't they legalize it so it could be taxed?

7. Brimc, while I agree that an addict doesn't particualry care how much his next fix costs, I would argue 1. That cost does play a role for recreational users and 2. That a high cost hinders the ability of the addict to use. I don't recall the specific stats, but I recall hearing that for every $1/pack of tax the government slapped on cigarettes, teen smoking decreased by 10%.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The catch is like with all else, everyone is different. It is not known how much pot it takes to damage my brain as opposed to damaging yours.

There is no "safe" drug.

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If you eat enough carrots, they will have a toxic effect. The effect will be more damaging to some than others. There is no "safe" food.

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I'll split hairs and say that it's not necessarily toxic, but overeating and stretching your stomach to the point of bursting is.

And that brings me to my point. Everyone knows that if you stuff yourself with so much food that you burst, bad things happen. Not everyone knows that pot is harmful and addictive. There's lots of misinformation out there being spread by uninformed people.

That's all I'm trying to say. Pot is not harmless.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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3. Willmagic is right that there are negative externalities of the Drug War, but they exist for mere drug use too. Families are torn apart by junkies. Property is stolen. While the drug war raises prices, I'm not sure that stealing would end if we legalized. Junkies will still need to get a fix and they will still have trouble getting a job (another negative externality) regardless of the price. While less stuff might get stolen, I doubt it would stop.

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Here's the thing...junkies will be junkies regardless. The drug war is demonstrably ineffective at getting people to stop using drugs.

Iron, you claim to be a liberal. So how can you reconcile your support for the drug war with what is happening in communities like West Baltimore and East St. Louis?

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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The cost of drugs has absolutely no deterent effect on an addict's desire to use.

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I really disagree with this. However, addictive drugs have an extremely elastic demand, and people will go to much greater lengths to acquire them than they would if, say, twinkies were sold on the black market for ten times what they'd cost in a free market.

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I'm not really sure how to respond to this. You state your disagreement, but then give a piece of evidence supporting my claim.

In what way do you disagree with my original statement?

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

Because the drug war is not responsible for those communities problems. Poverty has been around a lot longer than the drug war, so I'm going to assume that you are not alleging that the drug war is part of that problem.

I agree that the number of residents of these communities who are incarcerated, particuarly the traditional breadwinners (adult men) is a huge problem for these communities. I think the problem here is not the drug war in general, but the tactics used. First offence users should not get lengthy prison terms, and under state laws they usually aren't. Federal drug laws are more draconian, but that just means those laws need to be changed. For the relatively small number of serious dealers, I think the good of previnting addiction outweighs the cost of removing those individuals productive capacity from society.

2. The drug war is very effective in getting people to not use drugs in the first place. It worked for me. I really don't think the fight is about cleaning junkies up (that's what rehab is for), its about persuading people to not become junkies.

3. WRT your time preference argument, no one has a higher time preference than a junkie. If we're going to get people to look to the future, we need to keep them off drugs. Also, I disagree that the Drug War imposes more time preferences. From what I've heard, even drug dealers have plans for the future. They don't plan on going to jail or getting shot because they don't plan on getting caught. Their plans are to "get out of here": to move out of the ghetto and make a life for themselves. They might see selling drugs as a way to accomplish this, but that doesn't mean they are short term thinkers.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

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1. Everyone saying that the law enforcement effort is causing lower prices is being silly. Every time a pot shipment is seized or someone is deterred from growing coca, the supply is reduced. This leads to higher prices. As we like to say around here, correlation != causation

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I don't know who's suggesting that the war on drugs is creating cheaper prices. That's impossible.

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Issues involved with Cocaine use include crack babies and overdoses.

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These issues exist with alcohol too. Fetal alcohol syndrome and ODing occur with drink.

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I'm pretty sure that more people are killed by drug overdoses than alcohol overdoses despite the fact that alcohol is much more widely used.

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Alcohol is also much, much, much easier to dose. When you buy a bottle of vodka that says "80 proof" and measure the drinks with a shotglass, you know exactly how much alcohol is going into your body. Contrast this with powdered street drugs, which are acquired in an unmarked plastic bag with no disclosure of the ingredients. How much active ingredient is in there? How much of it is an impurity like caffiene, DXM, ephedra or baking soda? You don't know. Accordingly, people are much more prone to overdosing with an unlabeled drug than a labelled one. I was at a party a few months ago and watched someone twich nervously for twenty hours straight because he did a bunch of coke that was really strong; much stronger than the usual crap that came around. I haven't researched it, but I'm willing to bet that similar problems occurred with alcohol during the prohibition.

imho, this is a large part of the reason why we are seeing people use pharmaceutical drugs recreationally now. A pill that says "OC" on one side and "40" on the other is almost certainly going to contain 40 mg of oxycodone. It's much more reliable and safer, even though it's about as addictive as heroin (and not as good).

Legalize the drugs, and people will be able to dose safely and avoid this problem.

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I'm sure bkholdem can attest that many of the homeless people he lived with were addicts. How many of those people could we save if we could keep them from getting drugs?

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It's a fantasy, Iron! It's not going to happen! The market for drugs is un-[censored]-beatable. No matter how much money we waste in this stupid war, there will still be people finding ways to alter their consciousnesses. Besides, if they're just trying to escape their problems, many will just turn to another vice: alcohol.

Re: Legalize street drugs???
 

[ QUOTE ]
Because the drug war is not responsible for those communities problems. Poverty has been around a lot longer than the drug war, so I'm going to assume that you are not alleging that the drug war is part of that problem.

I agree that the number of residents of these communities who are incarcerated, particuarly the traditional breadwinners (adult men) is a huge problem for these communities. I think the problem here is not the drug war in general, but the tactics used. First offence users should not get lengthy prison terms, and under state laws they usually aren't. Federal drug laws are more draconian, but that just means those laws need to be changed. For the relatively small number of serious dealers, I think the good of previnting addiction outweighs the cost of removing those individuals productive capacity from society.

2. The drug war is very effective in getting people to not use drugs in the first place. It worked for me. I really don't think the fight is about cleaning junkies up (that's what rehab is for), its about persuading people to not become junkies.

3. WRT your time preference argument, no one has a higher time preference than a junkie. If we're going to get people to look to the future, we need to keep them off drugs. Also, I disagree that the Drug War imposes more time preferences. From what I've heard, even drug dealers have plans for the future. They don't plan on going to jail or getting shot because they don't plan on getting caught. Their plans are to "get out of here": to move out of the ghetto and make a life for themselves. They might see selling drugs as a way to accomplish this, but that doesn't mean they are short term thinkers.

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1. An 18 year old who sells drugs hand to hand to an undercover cop in New York City will be charged with Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Second Degree. This is a Class A, 2nd degree felony. The only crimes classified higher than that by the NYS Penal Code are Class A 1st Degree Felonies, ie capital murder. The best deal the 18 year old is getting unless he agrees to set up someone else is 5 years. That's state pen time. The average kid selling 10 dollar rocks is someone with a habbit, making enough selling to support it. Read Freakonomics for more on this.

2. You aren't an addict. Drugs effect addicts differently than non-addicts. People don't decide to become addicts, just like they don't decide to have lung cancer. Addiction is a health problem, not a criminal problem.