Reduction of violence connected to the production and distribution of drugs

[edwest2]

I think the real question to ask is:

Is it the government’s job to protect a man from himself?

And if you believe it is then the next question to ask is:

Is it morally right to place burdens on other people to protect a man from himself?

It is morally right to protect people from a drunk driver. It is morally right to ban smoking in buildings due to second-hand smoke harming others. It is morally right to discourage your neighbor from harming his body with illegal drugs.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Brendan_64]

Yes it does.

2291 The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil, since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral law.

And I suppose you are not including alcohol and tobacco within the category of ‘drug’?

Is drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes therefore gravely sinful.

You are confused. Legalizing drugs encourages it’s consumption. FACT.

That is not a fact, that is simply your opinion. Portugal decriminalised drugs in 2001 and drug consumption has not risen. Drug related deaths has on the other hand fallen, as has the levels of HIV, and participation in drug rehabilitation programmes has risen.

I see you use legalism as an attempt to legalize drugs which are contrary to the moral law. You are ignorant of Catholic doctrine…

But drugs are legalised. Tobacco and alcohol are legalised in your own country.

As someone who is supposedly a logical person and educated it is incredulous that you would pretend to ignore history regarding this matter. I recommend you do more research before espousing the legalization of currently illegal drugs.

And it is quite astounding that you seem to define what is and what is not a drug, by what substances are and are not legal. If you were consistent and logical in your approach you would be calling for prohibition of alcohol and tobacco which are just as much drugs as cannabis and opium.

 

[Brendan_64]

It is morally right to discourage your neighbor from harming his body with illegal drugs.

But what about your neighbour harming his body with legal drugs? Surely then these drugs (alcohol and tobacco) ought to be made illegal? Yet these drugs are advertised and promoted, particularly at this time of year.

Tobacco kills a higher percentage of its users than any other drug (legal or illegal). Alcohol causes far more violent behaviour than any other drug (legal or illegal). But that’s OK because they’re legal, so we don’t refer to them as ‘drugs’.

 

[po18guy]

The difference between robbery and drugs is that when I rob someone I infringe on their private property rights. When I take drugs who do I hurt besides myself? Is it the government’s job to protect me from myself? Is it society’s job? If so, is it morally right to impose costs on other people to protect me from myself?

This liberal/libertarian argument holds no water. There is no society that has ever been founded upon, or has healthily persisted upon the legality and toleration of drugs. Such licentious behavior is the mark of a society in transition - and not upwards. Ever hear “no man is an island”? So it is with drugs. Even if you are in solitary confinement, your behavior affects those who care for you there.

Do you think we should criminalize alcohol and tobacco?

Nice try. Are you claiming that medical and societal costs from lung illness and lung cancer amount to nothing? That you and I do not also pay for it? The difference is that alcohol has bonafide cultural/societal uses as a food product. It is a traditional ethanol-containing, self-preserved food.

Public drunkenness was a crime in the 1960s. But, when social liberalism made alcoholism a “disease” and public drunkenness was legalized (and increased), all alcohol-related crimes began to creep upward. How many drunks have been rolled on the street, due to their drunkenness?

Most people in jail for drugs are there for minor possession. Do you think that’s right?

Do you know how the legal system works? Most of those people’s charges were reduced from dealing (at some level) to the young. Is that right?

Do you think families should be broken up because of that? Do you think people’s whole lives should be ruined because they chose to take drugs?

Listen to yourself! Drug use - legal or otherwise - breaks families up. To believe that making drugs legal will magically fix this is irrational. Family drug use leads to spousal abuse and the neglect/abuse of children. You want more of this? Please explain how legalizing drugs will improve this. Drug use per se indicates an underlying problem. Simply giving up is not a solution - it is negligence.

You say drug use will always be associated with crime. What about alcohol? Why was crime involving alcohol worse under prohibition then it was after prohibition was repealed?

I was on the street combatting both drug and alcohol use for 31 years. How did you get your hands dirty dealing with these societal problems?

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

As someone who is supposedly a logical person and educated it is incredulous that you would pretend to ignore history regarding this matter. I recommend you do more research before espousing the legalization of currently illegal drugs.

You could start by researching the history of Prohibition in the US.

I’ll get you started. The 18th Amendment passed in 1918 banning alcohol. The 21st Amendment passed in 1931 repealed the 18th Amendment. As of 1931, after 13 years, we as a society felt strongly that whatever our personal beliefs were regarding alcohol consumption that Prohibition was a failure. You would do well to examine that period before you make your blanket statements.

There’s a huge problem out there with violence around the supply. It was proven with the re-legalization of alcohol that the violence ebbed with the loss of control that the criminal enterprises had over the supply. Did not mean we totally endorsed the consumption of alcohol: there have been increases in penalties in recent decades for drunk driving, some drunk drivers who killed others have been convicted of manslaughter or murder and sentenced to prison, employers are allowed to fire workers for drunkenness on the job, etc.

 

[Catolico65]

And I suppose you are not including alcohol and tobacco within the category of ‘drug’?

Is drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes therefore gravely sinful.

A Christian should never twist the Word of God to try to make a point.

That is not a fact, that is simply your opinion. Portugal decriminalised drugs in 2001 and drug consumption has not risen. Drug related deaths has on the other hand fallen, as has the levels of HIV, and participation in drug rehabilitation programmes has risen.

I see you are a revisionist. Please see the history of cocaine and heroin.

And it is quite astounding that you seem to define what is and what is not a drug, by what substances are and are not legal. If you were consistent and logical in your approach you would be calling for prohibition of alcohol and tobacco which are just as much drugs as cannabis and opium.

It is astounding that you would ignore the Gospel of Paul where he warns us to not do things that would cause our weak brother to sin, namely legalize drugs.

Then again your opinion is predictable, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”.

 

[weller2]

There is another commonly overlooked problem related to illegal drug production, and it’s the lack of quality control.

Very few deaths of overdose are intentional. Say that you have a heroin addict. He has his supplier. The supplier goes to jail, so he switches to a different supplier. What he doesn’t know, is that the merchandise from his previous supplier had only 40% heroin in it, but the merchandise from his new supplier is over 80% heroin. So he ends up unknowingly overdosing.

That, and you can never be sure what contaminations are in the drug you are illegally buying. This is exactly the reason people are warned not to buy alcohol from illegal sources: the distillation process actually produces a methanol / ethanol mix, and the methanol fraction has to be separated and discarded – and it is quite easy to get it wrong. So if you’re buying God-knows-what produced by God-knows-who there’s a good chance you end up buying a poison. In contrast, a legal producer of alcoholic drinks simply buys a 99%-pure ethanol produced by a respectable chemical company with an actual QA department and mixes it with non-alcoholic stuff to produce a drink. Not much potential for methanol poisoning this way.

I’m not familiar with chemistry of drug production, but I bet that similar problems exist there.

 

[mikekle]

In the US, we tried Prohibition (of alcohol) back in the 20s and a lot of violence grew up around rum-running, etc.

So we repealed it.

What about the tremendous amounts of violence surrounding the drug trade? It continues because drugs are illegal. If we legalized drugs, then all the areangements would fall under the law–we could regulate it. Instead of drug-lords taking over towns along the drug routes and killing and kidnapping people, we’d have some peace.

So… would this be more moral than what we are doing now?

You are absolutely correct!!! I too wonder why our leaders are not seeing the failure of the war on drugs, it has been a failure for many years now, and yet with prohibition, it did not take long at all before they decided it was not working and it was repealed…id love to know the true reason why they continue the war on drugs, but I have a feeling they cannot tell us the real reason, as it would incriminate the Govt.

I have a feeling the Govt is somehow involved in the drug trade, in fact the CIA was even proven to be involved in this in the past, so Im betting they are still involved in some capacity.

The drug cartels and everyone else making billions of dollars off this industry are probably the ones making sure the drugs STAY illegal, as they stand to loose everything once drugs are legal, it would ruin them for life and push the criminal element out of the entire business. The leaders of the drug cartels probably have alot of ‘dirt’ on our political leaders, so they blackmail them into keeping drugs illegal. This is the only reason I can think of.

If drugs were made legal, the total crime in the US would drop in half, probably more, and our country would be flush with taxes from their sales, so the crime thing is making me think our ‘for profit’ prisons are another reason they want to keep drugs illegal, if they were made legal, prisons would be nearly empty, and thats a big loss of money for alot of people…so that is definitely not going to happen (in the US anyway, we are way too corrupt for that).

I do often wonder why our Govt is not going after alcohol and tobacco with the same tenacity though, they both cause alot of health and public safety problems and cause ALOT of problems for law enforcement, yet laws for alcohol and tobacco have remained the same for years and years, and I cannot think of anyone even suggesting new laws!! But both of those industries also bring in alot of tax dollars and create alot of jobs, so public health and safety are put on the back burner to keep those dollars rolling in…that seems to be the american way!

 

[TEPO]

Violence is not the only concern with the legality of drugs. It’s actually one of the least important factors IMHO.

There are some purely evil drugs out there. Crack, for instance, is the most unholy of all unholies. To allow unlimited access to it would not only ruin lives, but would remove the potential for the salvation of many souls.

 

[freeRadical]

Violence is not the only concern with the legality of drugs. It’s actually one of the least important factors IMHO.

There are some purely evil drugs out there. Crack, for instance, is the most unholy of all unholies. To allow unlimited access to it would not only ruin lives, but would remove the potential for the salvation of many souls.

Again I ask, is it the government’s job to save a man from himself? Or society’s? If so, is it morally right to impose costs on other people to keep a man from hurting himself?

 

[freeRadical]

It is morally right to protect people from a drunk driver. It is morally right to ban smoking in buildings due to second-hand smoke harming others. It is morally right to discourage your neighbor from harming his body with illegal drugs.

Peace,
Ed

Someone driving drunk and someone imbibing alcohol in the privacy of his home are two different things. Drunk drivers endanger others, someone drinking a beer in his house does not. Second hand smoke endangers others, smoking in the privacy of one’s own home does not.

Yes, it is morally right to discourage your neighbor from hurting himself but is it morally right to prevent him from hurting himself, especially if doing so imposes costs on other people?

 

[freeRadical]

This liberal/libertarian argument holds no water. There is no society that has ever been founded upon, or has healthily persisted upon the legality and toleration of drugs. Such licentious behavior is the mark of a society in transition - and not upwards. Ever hear “no man is an island”? So it is with drugs. Even if you are in solitary confinement, your behavior affects those who care for you there.

If preventing me from using drugs harms another is it morally right or not?

Nice try. Are you claiming that medical and societal costs from lung illness and lung cancer amount to nothing? That you and I do not also pay for it? The difference is that alcohol has bonafide cultural/societal uses as a food product. It is a traditional ethanol-containing, self-preserved food.

If someone chooses to smoke and they get lung cancer then they should bear the full cost of that decision, society should not have to pay for other people’s decisions.

Do you know how the legal system works? Most of those people’s charges were reduced from dealing (at some level) to the young. Is that right?

Do you have a source to back up this claim? If drugs were legal we wouldn’t have to worry about drug dealers targeting and dealing to young people as much as we do no.

Listen to yourself! Drug use - legal or otherwise - breaks families up. To believe that making drugs legal will magically fix this is irrational. Family drug use leads to spousal abuse and the neglect/abuse of children. You want more of this? Please explain how legalizing drugs will improve this. Drug use per se indicates an underlying problem. Simply giving up is not a solution - it is negligence.

Do you think we should make alcohol illegal. Surely a lot of domestic abuse comes about from abuse of alcohol.

I was on the street combatting both drug and alcohol use for 31 years. How did you get your hands dirty dealing with these societal problems?

Since I was not “on the street” combating both drug and alcohol use I’m not qualified to comment on it?

 

[TEPO]

Again I ask, is it the government’s job to save a man from himself? Or society’s? If so, is it morally right to impose costs on other people to keep a man from hurting himself?

As a conservative republican with libertarian traits, the answer to your question is yes. Crack and murder should be banned from humanity. It is the governments job to assure that these two equal sins remain illegal.

 

[tjones80]

In the US, we tried Prohibition (of alcohol) back in the 20s and a lot of violence grew up around rum-running, etc.

So we repealed it.

What about the tremendous amounts of violence surrounding the drug trade? It continues because drugs are illegal. If we legalized drugs, then all the areangements would fall under the law–we could regulate it. Instead of drug-lords taking over towns along the drug routes and killing and kidnapping people, we’d have some peace.

So… would this be more moral than what we are doing now?

Well we should legalize marijuana since it is not addictive as cigarettes or other hard drugs. For other street drugs we can offer free treatment if they want to kick the habit.

Believe it or not the number one killer drugs in America are coming from our pharmacy. People are becoming addicted to opipates prescribed by doctors and thousands of people are dying from overdoses.

 

[TEPO]

To promote the legalization of the unholiest of unholies is demonic. Perhaps you don’t understand what the drug does. It literally opens the soul and invites demons in from hell. Anyone who turns a blind eye to this is equal to a satanic Freemason IMHO.

 

[SurfingTheTiber]

I might have missed this point already having been made in this thread so forgive me if I’m repeating someone else’s post but I see some real problems regarding car accidents. People’s reaction/reflex mechanisms are severely slowed by drugs of any sort. Making any mind/perception altering substance readily available will only make this worse. The argument about alcohol being legal doesn’t carry any weight with me. One problem doesn’t legitimize another problem. The fact that people kill others while drunk doesn’t mean it should be OK to kill people while high.

 

[TEPO]

Well we should legalize marijuana since it is not addictive as cigarettes or other hard drugs. For other street drugs we can offer free treatment if they want to kick the habit.

Believe it or not the number one killer drugs in America are coming from our pharmacy. People are becoming addicted to opipates prescribed by doctors and thousands of people are dying from overdoses.

Most people turn to hard drugs and pills because marijuana is more detectable than any other drug for the longest period of time -yet is the least harmful by far.

 

[weller2]

The drug cartels and everyone else making billions of dollars off this industry are probably the ones making sure the drugs STAY illegal, as they stand to loose everything once drugs are legal, it would ruin them for life and push the criminal element out of the entire business. The leaders of the drug cartels probably have alot of ‘dirt’ on our political leaders, so they blackmail them into keeping drugs illegal. This is the only reason I can think of.

Nah, it’s much simpler than that. There is a giant bureaucratic apparatus dedicated to fighting drugs. This apparatus must continue to justify its own existence, so it produces studies which “prove” that drug legalization would cause the sky to fall. It’s that simple.
Also, the law enforcement does not like the idea, because if you cannot put random people in jail for pot, then your statistics will go down.

Imagine a world where FDA-approved heroin is available in every pharmacy. No DEA, no drug departments of local police, no easy convictions… Thousands of government people out of work!

 

[TEPO]

Why not just send American drones to South America to spy on heroin and cocaine smuggling operations. Locate the cartels, then send in the special forces. get to the root of the problem.

We don’t have a problem treating the Taliban this way? What makes the cartels any different?

…then we can grow our own medical marijuana and other prescriptions without any of the hard drugs ever hitting the streets??? Duh!

 

[weller2]

There are some purely evil drugs out there. Crack, for instance, is the most unholy of all unholies.

But it is available anyway. The fact that it is illegal just makes a lot of not-so-nice people rich.

Let’s face it: drug prohibition has failed to achieve its fundamental goal – reduce availability of drugs.