this is your war on drugs

[adios]

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you can't take any medicine you feel like

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Why not? If the answer is to protect yourself, why does the same not hold true for law advice?

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Why do you ask me to tell you why?

[JuntMonkey]

The lawyer/doctor mumbo-jumbo is just a front for the real question - "should drugs be legal?" The answer is of course yes, and it isn't debatable.

[Taso]

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A society without government would definitely have some sort of a group that certifies doctors in some way. In that society whoever sold codeine would probably prioritize how they distributed their codeine on what kind of condition you had, which you could prove by showing them a slip from your certified doctor. Kind of like the prescription system, only drugs aren't arbitrarily declared "illegal" for certain people to possess, and you can't get sentenced to decades in prison for some pills in your pocket.

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I don't think a governmentless society is neccesary to achieve what you wrote above; a more accurate interpretation of the Constitution would do a great deal in arriving at those results. In fact, a governmentless society (I'll assume AC, as per the nature of this forum) might make important drugs even harder to get, as pharmecutical monopolies would be able to form (and yes, I've read that AC FAQ in the sticky, and I disagree with the assertion that monopolies cannot exist without government, maybe this deserves its own thread)

Your other examples aren't really key-to-survival things. But lets say we ran out of fertilizer, no, I wouldn't say the NFL should have dibs, but farmers should probably get fertilizers first. My lawn might start looking bad, but I'd prefer that to not having food/having food prices jacked up.

Disclaimer: I havn't truly thought out what I am writing, I reserve the right to consider future arguments and change my posistion, an action almost unheard of on an internet forum.

[adios]

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The lawyer/doctor mumbo-jumbo is just a front for the real question - "should drugs be legal?" The answer is of course yes, and it isn't debatable.

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I agree that the lawyer/doctor comparisons are mumbo-jumbo. I disagree that making all drugs legal isn't debatable. You may not agree with those who want to restrict and regulate the usage of drugs, that doesn't mean there isn't a debate about it though.

[owsley]

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Your other examples aren't really key-to-survival things. But lets say we ran out of fertilizer, no, I wouldn't say the NFL should have dibs, but farmers should probably get fertilizers first. My lawn might start looking bad, but I'd prefer that to not having food/having food prices jacked up.

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I just made up two random things that were on my mind (just bought a new laptop (macbook pros ftw ldo) and am looking forward to the giants game), but the point is that you can make a shortage of anything important up if you want to, it's meaningless.

[natedogg]

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The bottom line is that any system of laws and regulations that will put a man in jail for 24 years (or any amount of time for that matter) for possessing pain pills, under any circumstances, is unacceptable. It's ridiculous. There's no defending it.

natedogg

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So either forging prescriptions is ok, pain pills should not be prescription drugs or both.

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The answer is yes to #2(making #1 moot), and the reason is because otherwise you end up putting people like Paey in jail, or yourself. You're just lucky that you weren't in jail with Paey for acquiring the illegal marijuana for your mother, as you related in this thread. I would think that you of all people, someone who has actually felt the negative effects of the drug war and risked prison to circumvent it, would understand the folly of it.

I can explain further the falsehood behind prescriptions. Actually, I will do so at the top of this thread. I will post it shortly.

natedogg

[natedogg]

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Their expertise is there to guide you, to point you in the way of the information that you need. Personally, I can't imagine a scenario that I'd NOT listen to the doctor, but I shouldn't be prosecuted for it if I do.

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So you'd be ok with decisions to totally ignore the advice of the doctor and requisition any drug that someone felt like getting?

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Not to speak for anyone but myself, but yes.

If you think otherwise, please explain what you think makes doctors and lawyers different. I mean, more than "I don't see that being the same as writing prescriptions." WHY is that not the same?

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I'd agree with this, unless there was somehow some random short supply problem with an important drug, then I could see how it would be important to have doctor's prescribing it when it is needed, as opposed to someone taking a pill for the flip of it.

Example (crazy example, I'm on no sleep)

Pharmacies are on an extreme shortage of codeine. Person A needs codeine because he just had back surgery. Person B wants codeine because he has a toothe ache. No competent doctor would suggest codeine for a toothe ache, but for the back surgery, it may be needed. Under this shortage, there aren't enough pills for everyone to be wasting...etcetcetc.

I don't know why there is a shortage, whatever, ya'll get the point, shyt.

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But all you're saying here is that in the case of rising prices, certain parties shouldn't have to pay those prices.

This is a dangerous and murky path for public policy, not to mention mostly ineffective. Far better to just let prices fluctuate as nearly every economic study, both theoretical and posthoc, have shown.

natedogg

[Taso]

I actually didn't equate the decrease in supply with a rise in price. Like I said, I'm on no sleep. It was more of a "there's only 10,000 pills left, forever. The people who need them should get them." And like I said, in my hypothetical, I have no idea why its occuring, and its a stupid example.

[applejuicekid]

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you can't take any medicine you feel like

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Why not? If the answer is to protect yourself, why does the same not hold true for law advice?

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Why do you ask me to tell you why?

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Because I want to know why you can't take any medicine you feel like. I honestly can't think of any reason why not except you might hurt yourself.

[natedogg]

Most people don't really think of prescriptions as part of the drug war, but they are. The irony is that prescription laws are intended to put medical professionals in charge of your health care decisions but they immediately devolve into government oversight of your health care by non-medical professionals, as I'll show below.

First, what is the point of this system? It's that we all know you are a dumbass and you can't possibly figure out which pill you need, so many of them are held behind the counter until you get special approval from your doctor. We want to make sure that a knowledgable professional is directing your decisions so that you don't kill yourself.

This is classic paternalism but even so, that's not even the biggest problem with this system.

The problem is that if you really truly just empower the doctors to make the call on prescriptions, anyone will still be able to get any pill they like, because many doctors will run their practice as a revolving door for any drug. There is no way around this, if the doctors hold the power.

So under a prescription system that gives the power to doctors, the end result is that you just walk in and pay for whatever prescription you like, just as if there were no doctors. In this scenario, the doctors are just parasitic middle men between the producer and the consumer, with their sweet gravy train mandated and protected by the govt.
And you know what we libertarians think of that! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

To solve that problem, and to ensure that the prescriptions are all "legitimate" (whatever that means), you have to *disempower* the doctors! But what good is that? It undoes the entire point of the prescription system in the first place.

Today we have the head of the DEA, local prosecutors, and politicians with more discretion over your medical prescriptions than your doctor. If you don't realize that the DEA is hounding pain practitioners then you're not paying attention.

This is why prescriptions are a farce. Prescriptions only result in your health care decisions being made by unqualified bureaucrats, vote-grubbing politicians, and power-tripping law enforcement grunts.

You might say, well the government just needs to set the rules based on a qualified doctor's association but that only removes the problem by one step. That is what happens now and the govt often ignores that input anyway! The government has the final say on what is considered a legitimate use of these medicines and that final say is made by totally unqualified individuals.

natedogg